From soul to keys: streams of consciousness
by Velasa
Summary: A series of Nameccian centered soc fics I've written over the years..... they trace through all the realms of emotion, insanity, love, and death that can be twisted out of an rp.
1. Blood Roses

Before you stands a long collection of short stream-of-conciousness pieces I've written over the years, centered on a group on Nameccians belonging to myself and several other authors I know. Some of them are happy, most of them are not, and all of them are long and rambling and somewhat confusing.-

Why, do you ask? Well the premise of stream of conciousness, or soc, is that you have your inspiration and you just start writing without any thought of what exactly you're writing. You just let it come out uninterupted- soul to keys and when it decides it's over it's over. I correct spelling mistakes but not really anything else The other reason things may get confusing is that some 90 of these ficlets are non-cannon and revolve through RPs. They may get random, or repetitive, but the brain works in funny circles and I'm particurally strange so they will be too.-

A quick note. When reading these it is essential to be listening to music. Each piece is intially sparked by a piece of music, which I listen to on repeat while writing it and ends up as the title of the ficlet when it's over. Pluck it out of your playlist or find it on youtube- just get the song because it's not the bloody same without it.-

The first soc here is still one of my favorites, from an utterly fantastic, very long RP several years ago. The song is "Blood Roses" by Tori Amos, and I hope you enjoy the ride.

* * *

Darkness in the room, nothing around save a melody, figure in the corner of the bed, staring out at nothing. Emptiness inside her, she missed him. What else to say? The bloody rose was hollow, had lost her life. She missed him. She was no longer who she used to be

The Vivacious bold and outspoken whore-bitch was gone. she still lay out there, in the snow- but this time buried with the blood-stained earth and cloth scraps. She could never return.

Instead there stood now a quiet woman- no mouse, but not who she used to be She no longer wished to know man- because she might forget the taste of the one which she had done so much more than torment, play with- the man she'd loved.

Dagger glint in moonlight as she walked, moonbeams flickering through the silver-drenched gi that was not hers- elegance unknown to her before in her steps. It'd been... how long... gods... Wait. She knew. She always knew. It's been five years. Five years... gods. Damn the gods- who cared about them... Damn the Lady most of all... Mother, my ass... since when has she ever cared about me... she took him from me... Her fist clenched, the elegant claws chipped a bit- they somehow hadn't grown back. She didn't care. She was not so vain as she used to be, Moon flicker, dancing along the flowing cloak that smelled of him still, the scent embracing her, filling her throat like little kisses... Oh, she missed him.

Bloody Rose walks down the stairs- feet clicking softly- for they always had announced any visitor into the bedroom, no matter how soft the steps. Even Scythe could not seem to keep his perfectionist grace on them... the lightest of treads could be heard at his walking there, like a moths-wing whisper

Down the steps of the old fortress, the ruined walls letting in a bit of the cold- she didn't like the cold, but she didn't care. This place was that which was the closest to him he could get- what was left of him was buried out there, in the valley outlooked by the tiny bedroom window. She could see it... there was no way to mark the grave, but she knew. it never looked the same as the snow around. it.. she knew it by heart. She'd buried her heart there.

Softy steps in the hall, the five throne on the far side broken crumbled stone- noone ever went near them. She didn't like them, but she didn't care enough to get rid of them. One of them had been his, and as she knew not which- so she let them all crumble to dust and rocks and moss-ridden stone. Mariyonich had been intrigued by the moss when she was very small... each full moon, it'd let loose phosphorescent spores, the little dust glowing lightly and dancing on the wind which would flicker through cracks in the mortar. But now the child lay in her room, asleep- it was the late part of the night, the silence- and the moss sat dormant. Crescent moon.

She stood in her daughter's doorway for a time, looking over silently- the young face looking peaceful as she slept, the curve of her ears reminiscent of her father's. A sigh- the silver earbobs jingling as she turned her head and walked on.

It hadn't taken Rose long to re-teach her daughter on a few things... like missing. She'd been a fool before- it was silly not to miss someone so close to you. What was silly was to dwell on it and spend the rest of your life pouring over it... So Rose guessed she must be silly yet. Click of heels through room after empty decaying room- the fortress seemed to crumble into bits, but never fall, never threaten those inside. She sat for a time, staring up at one point in the middle of a dark room with the single light being a small hole in the roof- snow drifted down like spirits, flickering and shimmering until they touched her skin and melted into nothing. Ah, how temporal life was... She left the moonbeam room without a word.

It was his voice she missed the most, she thought to herself. Besides, of course, himself... but his voice. It'd been so silent, a whisper- one that grabbed your mind and pulled you toward it- a hidden strength in the words that seemed unfitting of him from his lean frame. And the eyes... dead silver, but she knew them. She knew the faint glimmers in them... So much she did not know. but that was part of her enchantment. She had loved the mystery as much as the sex in those days. But alas- all that was left was mystery, and bloody earth and bloody cloth. And a stone that glimmered deep indigo...

She hadn't known what to do with it. Destroy it, keep it... It was of him. But the little she knew of bloodstones made her shiver- there was no magic art darker than that. It was a twisted little pendant, made her shiver to touch it- she knew where it had come from. When the bond had snapped, when she had felt the agony all over, at the very end there had been that terrific pain searing down her chest- nothing in particular, but a searing...

Bloody Rose shook her head, pushing the thoughts away as she ventured out into the snow, pulling his cloak around her for warmth. It didn't take her long to reach the grave. The majestic mountains of death stood all around her, peaks searing into the darkest night sky, their cold ice glinting in the moonbeams through clouds- there were no stars tonight. The only light were the rare moonbeams, and the flurries of snow before they melted back into the earth below her feet. She knelt down, bushing the snow away, touching her hand to the cold earth- It was the right place, aright. She knew it more than she knew anything.

Bara's face was different now than he had known it. The hard edges had been worn away, her eyes did not glint the same, the lips no longer sneered or snarled so often. In truth, she was more beautiful now than she had been before- the never-aging , centuries-living widow sat by where she had lain down her lover's blood, thinking of what could have been if only she'd waken sooner. She'd known that... bastard. A snarl twitched in her face, a bit of the old glint in her eyes- she might have distracted him... he could have been killed... Ta-kun, you asshole, why did you push me away... How could you do this to me... A single tear touched her emerald cheek, but she shook it away. She did not speak, just watched the snow flicker down like spirits dancing on the wind of life before ending up crushed into the earth- life was temporal, oh so quick and you were gone, forgotten by all save few other snowflakes who would end up the same as you. with a hiss, she lashed out at the little flakes, screaming out damnations to her mother- You've never cared about me, why should I believe at all in you... You've never helped me, am I not your child? Was he not? Why were we the forsaken ones... Why, why why... The blackness of the night gave her no reply, the echo glistening off icy peaks that would never fall, the diamond-stone always reflecting the light that touched it, unlike those eyes she had so loved.

She would never understand. Standing from slumped knees, numbed from the cold... She stared out into nothing with saddened aged eyes. It would never be the same. Nothing would ever be the same. Ah, what she would have given just to kiss him once more...anything, for the feel on his lips brushing her face... If only he had said it. She knew the truth, in the deepness of her soul- he did love her. Maybe she had been an experiment, as to her he had first been not more than a toy... but the pits of her soul told Bara he had loved her. But he had never told her that. That, she longer for more than anything else. The loneliness of the Tsumite Tsubris tried to swallow her, but she stood tall in the snow and ice and rock and crystal and sky and earth... Nothing would ever bring her down. She was too proud to let it. She would show them all that she could survive this. Every one of those bastards who hated her- She would show them. Their daughter would grow older, become a beautiful young woman with a mind all her own, and be a free-spirit- nothing could rein her. And that is how she wanted it. What she did.. was up to her. She would not hold her child back...

Only one thing frightened her. She was so leery on the aspect of love. Should Mariyonich find a kindred spirit, as she had... she knew not what to think. It had been oh so wonderful... before he died on her. She did nor want that for her child. But she knew not what she wanted anymore. And she knew not what he would have wanted, for he had never if rarely spoken of love... He had never told her he loved her.

It was that barb which stick in her side so badly- that, and knowing she might have saved him but could not. Bara raised her hands to the sky, face empty- snowflakes dying on her hands as she stared up. Nothing. She had no mother- she was a forsaken child, as her lover had been and had died. If death like that was aloud to happen... there was no mother. It was all a lie- no mother with powers that great would allow her children to die like that. To be reduced no nothing but scraps of cloth and bloody earth and blood in the gut of a monster. She had freed his blood- had let it spill out over the floor along with the crimson of his murderer's, had burnt the whole palace to the ground, letting his trapped spirit free in the sanctification by flame... Nothing could bind him now, wherever he was. She had freed him, laid to rest the remains he left, and avenged him. There was nothing more she could do, forsaken as she was.

Harp turned away from the simple grave, walking back with soft steps to the old ruins- She was getting too cold to stay. Head down, cloak pulled around her, eyes silent-soft, she turned her back to the place where she had buried the bloody cloth and the bloody earth and her own heart, walking back- This was how it would always be now.

She would always be alone.

10:12 AM 1/9/03


	2. Matter of Trust

Before you stands a long collection of short stream-of-conciousness pieces I've written over the years, centered on a group on Nameccians belonging to myself and several other authors I know

You might have noted for the char I've put in Pic. That doesn't mean that the stories are about him- it's just a way to let namekseijin fans know about the story. Now that gets all the technical stuff out of the way... The next installment, probably the next three, center around a certain ghost boy of mine... it's a long story I won't attempt to explain. These are some of the flat-out weirdest things I've written... the fact that the boy's stark raving nuts doesn't help much.

You'll notice some blending of speech in this one- it's purely intentional. S'the way he talks . Not an accent that I know of.. he's just lazy in his speech, as he's always been.

The song here is "Matter of Trust" By Billy Joel. Though the words themselves doesn't really fit, it's something about the pulsing of the music...

Chapter 3 is a decidedly disturbing piece, that chose to twist through the darker parts of the boy... language and violence flags there. The song there will be "Settle Down" by Zwan. Don't ask me how the ficlet came out of this song... It's one of those weird ones.

Chapter 4 is to "Age of Innocence" by The Smashing Pumpkins. Don't ever try to make sense of that one, because it doesn't make sense, at all. Just a medley of my hopes for Lute's future.

See you guys later. Remember to listen to the songs with these.

* * *

The music beats frantically in the background- pulsepulse, heartbeat. Smoothing, soothing- wrapping through everybody's ears, minds, heard- pulling into a beauty of a swing.

S'a party- nighttime twined outside, starlight on the sky- whispers in winds, carrying away the faint beats of the sad old love song- fading away as the distance passes. Fluttering away on the wind like birds wings- reaching eyes, ears, far away- watching.

Flicker of wings- closer. Not much farther. There- thatched seat, pounding blinding melody- eyes closed, whispering-humming- knows this one. By heart- s'a beat he loves. Beautiful youth- beautiful wild dancing youth.

The lights of the house are alluring... soft greens and blues and reds and blacks and fuchsia- bodies dancing with an ethereal glow about them, to the dancing of the music. Eyes dance across them- watching with sadness. Misses. Misses lots. S'another world in there- another world altogether. And he can't quite be certain he'd get through the door, s'not his world.

Beat fades in the distance- softening on the wind, flicker of wings- flicker of heart, flicker of tears. Lights fade away, leaving stars- cold, soft stars. White moonlight, silver moonbeams on the desert- nobody speaks. The moon and he just glance at each other, great emerald orbs flickering their own silent language. Nobody speaks. He sighs.

Flicker of wings, dust swirling about in eddies as he flickers to the sky- raise to the air, twist about, come back to the ground. little dust, little sand-flakes- live so much longer than snowflakes. Snowflakes live beautiful and melt away- sand starts strong and wilts away into little nothings that're blown about by the wind by hand on. I'm a sand, he smiles to himself. Little green sand. little pieces- sad face. Wanna be a mountain again.

Ah, sentimental. Mountains fall, unforged blades break- snowflakes melt and people die. Winds fade away.

So he makes his own wind- soar up to the sky, arms held out, silver moonbeams caressing the skin, bathing him in softness- flickering through his wings, silver sheen on emerald- silver flooding closed eyelids, soft beautiful silver. moonlight highlight- swallowing about the dancing shape, dancing in the sky- moonbeams as lover, since no other steps up. Wings and wind as melody- whispers of birdsong.

Beautiful night, soft night- no clouds, cloudless crystal black sky- black diamond powder, mountains to sand- coal to diamonds. Coal makes diamonds.

Coal's like little pebbles- blank and dingy and nasty. Dirty stuff- no soft uses, black nasty ones. But coal makes diamonds. Maybe I'm a diamond growing.

Moonlight bathe, angel soaring through the sky- over desert, forest, mountains- time flicker, in a land of silver and gold and ebony and amethyst and rose coral- soft gem tones, everything sparkling like emeralds in sunlight. Nothing moves, nothing breathes- only the wind in the distance. Tall ancient trees, invisible ever-shifting paths through ancient trees- living things, but not so. Never change, never grow- like me. Like me he says, flying away though the ancient branches. Six-foot trunks, can't even get his arms around it- but nuzzles from his little moss-nest, arms around the thick rough bark- listening to the tree breathe. Spirit pulsepulsepulse. Not alive, but alive. Just like me, he smiles.

Flicker of soft golden wings- dancing in the eternal twilight/daybreak, time doesn't exist here- it's the strange time, the changing time, the time of ivory-silver-lapis-ebony mountains in the distance- sit atop the peaks, thoughts unsaid twining through his brain- friends, family, the pulse-pulse of the living beat pounding in his ears- not hurt, just pound. Pulsepulse.

No know how long. Curls up in the little moss nest in the big tree, wings draped around him like a blanket- hugging a doll, gift from a friend of kassan. Smiling little chibiface- cuddles it and drifts off to dreamland.

No dreams. He live in a waking dream world.

Wake up. Dawn-twilight greeting- land soaked in soft colors of a setting/rising invisible sun, and the coming/going nighttime spreading it's own cool hues everywhere else- blue shadows.

Stretch, yawn- lil fangs glinting in the twilight/daybreak light. Eyes open- emerald flooded with light and darkness. soft little smile- huggles the chibiface doll, nuzzling it. S'got a friend around. Though not much to talk back. Plenty to talk to.

Not gonna though. Miss dad. Wana see him.

Time flicker- he's gone, wings and all- leaving the twilight/dawn by itself to figure out what it wants to do. Stalemate- time marches in place.

7:48 PM 6/13/03


	3. Settle Down

A medley of emotions await me across the brink- over there. It's not very far away at all, I could probably jump it.... Heh. Yeah. I could. But I don't. I stay here, arms around my knees, sitting and staring across the ravine- canyons stretching out for miles and miles and miles, out into infinity in hues of gold and umber and vermilion. it's beautiful.  
  
Damn, I miss things like this. Miss it alot.  
  
They're things I'll never have for myself again.  
  
I'm dead.  
  
Heh. Sure is just the thing to raise the spirits, no? I'll just sit here and sulk, staring across the canyon at the little house I grew up in.... one I was walk through the walls of now. I'm dead. Heh.... at least I don't have to bother with doors if I don't want to.  
  
What's much more of a problem is the fact that I can walk straight through my family as well...... brothers, sisters, anocha, 'pops............ pops........... Fuckit, I miss ya pops. Why the hell can't you just see me.......  
  
I can't see the canyon right now. my face is buried between my knees- and as I can't quite see through things yet, all I see is black. Warm, comforting darkness... I want to retreat into it, but I know it's a dream not to be had,.......  
  
A sigh.  
  
It's mine.  
  
Fuckit. There I go, getting depressed again... fuckit, fuckit, fuckit........   
  
Heh. Angry too. I hate getting to angry. Just staring into nothing. Nothing. I'm nothing.  
  
View shifts.... I'm curled on my side, knees pulled into my face. The blackness isn't absolute- little streaks of falling sunlight sneak their way in,. caressing my worn face. It's all blurred, though..... I don't ask why. I don't want an answer, so I don't ask.  
  
I wish it was all-consuming.. I wanna just drift the fuck away.... but I can't. I'm stuck here, the distance from my family uncrossable, no matter how close they are.  
  
I don't move for a long time. I stopped paying attention to its numbers a long time ago, so I don't know how long. I think I fell asleep. Or maybe I just laid there and cried. My nails are tinted. I don't ask what I did. But I think I killed someone again. I don't ask why. I don't want to know anymore.  
  
Suddenly, something shivers up my spine.... somebody's here. I pull my head up, turning it slightly- not like I'm gonna get jumped, nobody here knows I exist.........  
  
And I freeze.  
  
Oh.... gods......  
  
Why... do you have to fucking do this to me....  
  
I just kinda sit and stare for a while.... I don't know if I'm crying. But I think I am. I couldn't remember if I was more upset or furious... The gods wh0 didn't even know I still existed were still intent on tormenting me.......  
  
'Pops.  
  
Oh, Mi'lady, it's 'pops...... why's it gotta be 'pops.......  
  
He's crying. He's sitting there knees up, head in his hands, staring out at the canyon, tears on his face.... and only two feet away. I could reach out and... no. Don't be ridiculous. of course I couldn't. I'm a ghost. I don't do anything, I just sit there. Sit there next to him, eyes clouded- it's ;pops. MY 'pops. Not some other Piccolo....gods. I miss you, dad..... I don't know whether I thought or said that one. It doesn't mater. I'm dead. /He can't see me...... he never will.... But I'm crying. I can't think. Especially when he starts talking to himself. Talking to me.  
  
But he doesn't know I'm there.  
  
But he's talking to me, so I go silent- My hands are shaking. I know I'm crying, but I don't care. He's talking to me.   
  
I know what he'll say. But I sit in silence and listen anyway. I know he misses me. I know he still doesn't understand why I did it. I know... he.....  
  
None of your business. Get the fuck out of my face, I'm entitled to keep things to myself. Don't ask me what he said. it's nothing wrong. It's just personal. Family thing. None of your goddamned business.  
  
.... I know it doesn't matter. But I still tried to hug him. I could feel myself going through him, because I couldn't keep my arms straight, or he'd move slightly. But I sat there, and I won't even try to pretend I wasn't crying. I was crying like a little fucking kid.  
  
But that's none of your business.  
  
The night was pitch black by the time he left. He stared out across the canyon, face dry but worn... and said that he missed me and loved me and knew he'd eventually see me again, in the next life...  
  
Oh, how cruel you are, fate. How cruel, irony. He'll never see me.  
  
I won't want to be there when he's looking for me. My heart's broken enough already. I don't want to think about it. Don't want to.......  
  
I can't take it. I open a portal and slam through it as he flies off. I can't hear anymore. No more. No more.....   
  
No fucking more....  
  
I loose myself again.  
  
Next time I can remember, I'm lying on a cruddy roof, staring at a pitch black sky. The stars seem to have all died, all those little pinpoints of hope that shine so bright- all dead.  
  
I really gotta shake off this new habit. The sake doesn't do me any good.  
  
Something smells bad- I catch a look at my hands and groan- covered in crimson. I killed somebody again. On a fucking streak, ain't I......  
  
The cool indigo running down my skin relaxes me. I don't feel so dead. But my weakness makes me even more angry. Swipe, swipe, and the sides of my head are bleeding like my arms.  
  
I just lay there on the filthy roof, blood meddling with dirt and grime and glass and soot and all the crap of the world- it suits me. Too well.  
  
Fuckit.  
  
I don't want to think.  
  
I dream again.  
  
I can't remember where I was for the time after that. I can't remember what happens half the time. specially when I'm this fucked up. I don't like to think.  
  
It'll catch up to me soon enough.  
  
And when I remember, I'll bleed it all away.  
  
That's what I always do.  
  
That's what I always do.....  
  
there's something comforting about utter madness.  
  
People don't question me.  
  
The whole ten that know I exist, that is.  
  
Fuckit, I'm a miserable bastard....  
  
The scars on my arms are back again. I just put them there. That's a comfort too. I don't know what I'd do if I couldn't bleed anymore. I'd loose it.  
  
Like I haven't already...  
  
hypocrite, hypocrite, hypocrite, HYPOCRIT@!!!! FICKING GODSDAMNED HY{OCRIT!!!!!! DAMN YOU!!! DAMN TYOPU TO HELL!!!!  
  
More blood. It doesn't help.  
  
I raise my arms to the sky, screaming with all my might- scaring birds into the air in a torrent- no innocent thing wants any part of me. I keep screaming- hoping someone'll see me.  
  
I'm standing in the middle of a crowd, writhing on the ground and screaming at the top of my lungs, foaming at the mouth- lashing around, tears on my face- but not a single soul ever cares. They walk on by, stepping straight though me.  
  
Nobody fucking cares.  
  
Why should they? I'm just an incompetent, sad little bitch. I can't do anything right.  
  
You know? She was right.  
  
I'm a blasphemy against a righteous god- I'm a mockery, a sin in itself. I'm the antichrist.  
  
Fuckit, fuckit, fuckit.......  
  
I'm bleeding so much I black out.  
  
The street is as dark as midnight when I come to. It hurts all over./ The hurting is good. It reminds me I'm real.  
  
I stand up, shaky on my feet- wiping my face. It's cold out here. As cold as my body. If I was alive, I would've frozen to death. Gotta stop to brush off the snow.  
  
Silent, now... too tired to be angry anymore. I just wanna go Home.  
  
Nobody notices the window open. I curl up in my old bed and cry myself to sleep.  
  
I'll go see dad tomorrow.  
  
Not like I'll tell him anything.  
  
Just wanna see him.  
  
At least there's somebody I can talk to.  
  
Not like he needs to know what I've done.  
  
Just wanna be acknowledged by another living being.  
  
And I can't hug 'pops.  
  
8:10 PM 3/29/03 


	4. Age of Innocence

9:09 PM 8/8/03  
  
Laughter rings out about the canyon and valleys and echoes and dances through the sky like a twisting mad little leaf- bright blue-gold wings shimmering in the first sunrise of the world.  
  
The stalemate has been finally broken- the sun's risen. it will never fall again.  
  
Realization, realization, there is only one truth, and her name is eternity. no limits, no ends, no death ever again- not even life, just the endless reaches of eternity to the ends of the neverending universe. the laughter echoes louder and brighter as the shade zips by- people blink in wonder at the winged thing, the flicker of a ghost to their eyes- some see his face, most hear his voice- but he's seen. he's real. and that's all that matters to him in this world. he's seen, he's seen, he's seen, he's real again. after so long being temporal, he's now real again- almost as if he was alive, but without pain or death. sorrow, yes. anger, yes. but he's alive again.... in a little way. he's alive in the eyes of those around him- he exists....  
  
The winds twist about him, fanning out wings of spirit- ruffling the bright shimmering things, his antennae, the folds of his pants- shimmering in his eyes, tears flowing freely- crying out in joy at the new reality of the world- this isn't the end. death is never the end- it just changes things.  
  
Home again. Home again. eyes on him- ON him, not through him- oh how he's missed... swept away in a torrent, eyes still wet- they haven't been dry in so long, but now he's laughing all through it. this is reality. Their reality anyway. Like Home... but not Home, exactly. not yet.  
  
Dad. everyone.... friends, family he knows in other worlds- to hear his name..... to be spoken to, to be loved and held close and told that it's all alright, that he'll never be lonely again, he can speak any time....  
  
he just cries. and laughs.  
  
wings-of-spirit lifted above his troubles, never to be worried or mournful again- well, maybe he will. but not now.  
  
winter, through the seasons it always seems spring- new life. new life forever. flowers never fade, they blossom and bloom and open and live on forever- they grow more and more beautiful by the day, shimmering brighter in the light of their own suns- the soul most powerful of all. life before was an illusion, a farce of a true world hidden deep away in the shadows of something so wonderful... the old real world fell apart, reality shattering like glass- to reveal this perfect eternity. world cannot describe it. there's nothing to do except laugh and cry from joy- family. his family...... his family.....  
  
they're here too- laughter and tears and screams and hugs so tight he feels as if he'll pop- family. his family......  
  
can't describe the joy. the sun has risen, and she'll never fall.  
  
the scars don't hurt anymore. blind eyes see, mute voices speak, old wounds heal, broken souls mend, broken minds open. this.... is reality.  
  
the sun has risen in Someplace. Endless silver-amethyst-cobalt-emerald-onyx valleys bathed in gold- birds sing from the treetops, and the trees grow for the first time since the birth of time. Time's dead, but she lives on here- the universe has ended. reality is gone. All that is left is eternity.  
  
There's nothing to run from anymore. no reason to cry. but he's laughing and crying and dancing through the treetops with his daughter and grandson. his sisters and brothers, his mother-  
  
'pops.  
  
there are no words.  
  
There never will be. nothing could do that justice- nothing at all. he laughs and cries all at once. this is eternity.  
  
The sun has risen in Someplace.  
  
Everyone's dead, but so alive- alive here. bonds reunited, hearts brought back together- love is a tangible beast that swells in everyone's chest at the sight of everyone else- children, family, friends.... distant strangers that they've heard of once, or never at all- there are no bounds to it.  
  
There are no words.  
  
The Shade dances through the trees, the endless trees that now live miles and miles up, so high they reach into space- into the verges of insanity, but he perches up at the top with his daughter held close in his arms, her son in hers- three pairs of living eyes staring off in wonder as the world outside passes by rapid fire- stars are born and die before their eyes, supernovas explode and give birth to galaxies- civilizations grow and die all around, worlds fade away- inside of time. it's the blink of an eye. This is eternity.  
  
White world, red sun- hovering softly, staring out at the endless universe- there's silence... broken by laughter.  
  
Shade dances through the skies with reckless abandon, passing strangers look up at him in wonder and confusion.  
  
This is eternity.  
  
The sun has risen in Someplace.  
  
And..... there re no words to say.  
  
9:31 PM 8/8/03 


	5. Bluevelvet

A note- These next ones are very, very old. I'm really not as fond of them- by reading you'll be able to tell their age... But I still like them enough to post them.

The first is "Blue Velvet", which I've had as a midi for years and years before I realized it was a GT ending theme. Even with that strike against it it's still a fantastic little song with a great beat and the SOC stands before you like that.

Chapter 6 will be "We Walk in the Dream" by Live, the best band ever. It is deeply silly and somewhat embaressing, inspired by crazy talk with my best friend and Akallabeth's "A secret between villians". Enjoy!

* * *

He glanced silently across the way, his eyes locking onto one figure amid all the others there. She was beautiful.

Amid everything, his eyes could find but one, but that one... Which ached his head horribly. He was scared, Scared of the others, scared of her, scared of what might happen, but...

His eyes still followed her, still traced he movements around the room, still entrapped him in her... her... gaze.

Her aura was intoxicating top him, more than the sweetest wine, and so he followed her, thought his body moved not once the whole time.

The darkness of the large room was suffocating him, and he rubbed his eyes slightly, trying to feint off this exhaustion that was plaguing him, he was spent. From what?

He'd done not but watch her, slide across the floor like an angel, dancing silently by herself, and his eyes danced with her.

Oh gods she was beautiful.

He knew he wanted her... but what to do? What could HE say? He, of all people? A sigh.

He knew she'd never love him, never want him as he did her, as he worshipped her, as his eyes followed her.

Followed her.

Right into the arms of another man.

Maddening, it was. Biting his lip in apprehension, he looked away, not wanting to see her lips and his touch, so great was the envy in his heart...

What he wouldn't have done for her, just once. Just once. Just once...

Silence again, save the beat of a melody with words indistinguishable thudding out like the beating of some massive heart. The air was thick with a thousand scents, of perfume and food and drinks and people, of sweat and hormones. the roof, low-slung, was pitch black, only lit by the small light over the dancefloor, where she sat.

He knew he wanted her.

Sitting chatting by the side of the table, speaking to the girl next to her briefly before laughing out loud and hugging her tight, their happiness nearly palatable. You could feel it in the air.

The taller of the two nodded, and went her way. The other- her- sat her ground, waving her goodbye.

He had never felt this way in his life- yes, he'd had friends, acquaintances, but never a love. never such a want, an obsession, a need. He had to have her.

His view was obstructed again- the man had shifted so his back was to him- an he glared. how dare he so fully separate him from his beloved...

the night wore on. the heavy scent of alcohol permeated almost all there as the clock struck an hour that noone cared of. the night was endless- the night was theirs.

but he could not have her.

he could never have her- she'd been claimed by another ages long ago, years. But he had to have her.

One again, she stood top dance, glimmering like not just an angel, but a goddess.

a goddess she was, then- she was just as unobtainable.

it drove him mad.

and as the shots piled up, his heart depleted further and further into drunken sorrow, and all he could think of to drive or say was to either ask for another and watch her, glide...

He'd be damned if he could remember a bit of this in the mourning. But honestly, he didn't care- his eyes danced with her.

And she danced with his eyes.

finally, the midnight was gone- day soon approached. like a father sending out his children to go about their business, the bartend sent them all home, and sent a prayer to anyone who was listening that they'd get back in peace. the girl left as well, too.

The last to go was him. the black hair atop the bartend's head flashed slightly in the fading spotlight as he politely picked the young man up and told him 'twas time to go-

he only flashed his bright green eyes before leaving, his mind filled, for the moment, of the lady in red.

It's not like he'd remember it in the morning.

12:24 AM 2/16/02


	6. We Walk in the Dream

There was silence around as dark onyx eyes pierced the darkness, waiting. He'd been late. again.  
  
With a sigh the figure leant back, the slick fabric on his shoulders flittering in the breeze. he ignored the white cascade around him, crossing his deep emerald arms across his chest and watching it closer.  
  
The darkness was extreme, thick cloud cover having enveloped the night's sky, hiding both reincarnated moon and stars in it's haze, dying the whole world in the hue of his eyes. Kicking a rock absentmindedly, he watched it shoot off cross the sands of the desert called his, finally disappearing off into the distance. Not even bothering to look up, he reached an arm behind himself, whispering in his rasped tone "checkmate."  
  
"..... damn, nameck, you did it again."  
  
"I always hear you coming, Vegeta. you shouldn't try to sneak up on me anymore."  
  
Harsh laughter exploded from behind Piccolo as he turned to look at the diminutive sayia-jin who was to serve as his sparring partner once again, Son having been gone for months now, and Gohan too busy with his own life, trying to raise a younger brother along with watching both school and his mother. Quickly he banished the thoughts of the child, wanting to be able to focus on the task at hand.  
  
Vegeta stood quite still, arms folded over his armor-clad chest, head cocked ever-so-slightly to the side, his hair perched atop his head in the ever-present flame, smirking so faintly you wouldn't notice it if you hadn't been looking for it.  
  
"So, nameck, are we starting this or not? It's not like I have anything else to do."  
  
Piccolo's only response was to lower into a fighting stance, the winds that shifted the sands eternally billowing through his cape and throwing it about him in a manner that would have intimidated most people.  
  
But Vegeta wasn't most people. He responded in kind, and after a second's wait to see if his opponent would try for the first move, he phased out and struck out, beginning the spar.  
  
---  
  
If anyone had been traveling through the area, which wasn't likely- it was practically a hurricane after all, blown in from the coast so strong that it was being felt all the way into the interior- they would have nearly been blinded. Everywhere was pitch darkness in which you could barely see the place where you set your next step, and then there was the white-hot glow of auras racing across the sky like lightning.  
  
Only the sharpest of eyes would have been able to make out the shaped of bodies in the eyes of those private storms, and only shaper still would they have to be to identify the one-time princes as the souls who's fire lit the sky.  
  
That is, if said traveler hadn't fled in terror yet, or been incinerated by a stray renzoko ha. Or maybe even struck by some real lightning. All three forces seemed equally powerful.  
  
To the two directly involved the sky was a blur, a chaos of gray and black and white, the rain that drenched the world around them merely boiling as it touched their enflamed auras, filling the air with steam.  
  
Who was winning, not even they could tell. If it mattered- no. It really did not matter, the end. That would only be the other state- now they were too deeply involved in this other world, the one that only existed for the moment, for the battle, when warriors truly feel alive.  
  
For this short, blessed few moments, all that was existed was now. There were no regrets, no turmoiled minds, no gaping holes in hearts or souls, no blood-debts or confusion. And as they each felt their auras begin to falter, it was all-to-quickly gone again, and they collapsed to the ground, the rain finally reaching them, drenching to the bone.  
  
Piccolo was the first top stagger to his feet, sans cape and turban and most of a shirt, cursing silently as he flexed a newly-regenerated arm. smiling faintly, he kicked Vegeta's side unceremoniously, hissing "Get up"  
  
The sayian replied with a sharp glance, and spat out "Who won -this- time?"  
  
"I don't have a damned clue. And I don't think I care either. Just- take this", the nameckian replied, tossing a senzu from a small pouch on his belt to his sparring partner, who snatched it in mid-air and swallowed.  
  
Standing finally, Vegeta shot a glance to thee other and smirked. "I thought I did. Win."  
  
"And why is that?"  
  
"I sure look better than you."  
  
"Actually, I was thinking the opposite of that. You couldn't even get up."  
  
"And you couldn't count to ten on your fingers"  
  
"Can we stop bickering??"  
  
"Why? There's nothing else to do now, besides die of pneumonia."  
  
"Then why don't you just run home to Bulma, hmn?"  
  
".... give me one reason not go kick you ass now."  
  
"Because you lost, and I won."  
  
"Did not."  
  
"You are such a- did so."  
  
"Did not. I had all my limbs, I won."  
  
"Did so- I got up first, you needed -my- help."  
  
"Did not- I could have gotten up if I felt like it, I just didn't want to."  
  
"..... did so!"  
  
"did not!"  
  
"DID SO!!!"  
  
"did not did not did not!!!!!"  
  
"did- gods, we're acting like children! can we JUST STOP????"  
  
"alright."  
  
"good."  
  
"But you did not."  
  
"*smacks his forehead*"  
  
1:45 PM 3/28/02 


	7. Daysleeper

Note- oO Wow. I can't believe how many reviews there have been on all these... I'm honored guys. snuggles you all Didn't imagine my guys and gal's stories could have such an impression... I hope I can keep it up I'm unofficially titling this the REM update, as I had the good luck to see them in concert a while ago and it was just so absolutely amazing I ended up doing two from their songs.

The first is this one here, "Daysleeper", which ended up as a POV piece from that intensely emotional scene from DB a while ago, with little baby Piccolo and the birthday party.

After that chapter 8 will be "She Just Wants to Be", another Lute piece. Looking back at his past... there are several references to other fics of mine, but you don't need to read them to understand this.

* * *

The night and the rain are cold. Dark out- sun fallen, the little shape walking through the shadows shivers once- somehow lost. He wishes briefly he knew were he was going, in the first place...

Wind blows up- a shiver in the gust, little arms wrapping around a little body- not much to keep warm with, just the simple thing... wherever it came from. He's lost and it's cold out, and all of this seems bizarrely familiar- though he faintly remembers it was colder then. But when was NOW is all he wants to know...

Moon's out- it's cold for May. Winter's still holding on, in bits and pieces... the coldness of the empty moon staring down's a shiver in itself. He's cold and lost- something in him likes it, but the rest's just a frightened child- he doesn't know where to go.

A light in the distance- sound, light, noise- eyes open slightly, antennae perking on the little head- walking over, arms curled round to keep warm- a house, down the hill... it's called a house, right? Somewhere where nigen live... Doesn't know how he knew that. The confusion's familiar- a flicker, like a dying light bulb in his mind- wind plains, hills at the end of the world. But it's gone again, and the little shape stops at the house- face presses against the window. Someone's laughing.

He doesn't like that laughing- not sure what he'd want to hear. Not really sure of much- but it really looks warm in there... Little eyes blink, onyx peering through the fog created by warm breath against cold glass.

Three... Woman, man, little boy... they're all laughing- his ears twitch up, picking out the words... and something bitter grows. He doesn't notice the cold on his skin so much- he's more cold inside. A twitch of something angry in the little heart- anger, or maybe not. Something empty that hurts- he doesn't like that boy. He doesn't like these people, that cake, those candles, the toy- he hates them- a little fury building in so young a heart unhindered- a little monster looming inside a child.

The rock's heavy in his hand- he lets it fly, the sound of the shouts and the crash satisfying something- he sneaks inside when they run out.

It's warm inside, like he thought... but he doesn't really notice it. There's a cold anger inside him- eating at the mind, at the back of his head- a voice whispering, telling him what to do. Little clouded angry eyes glare out at the hated happy things- a shout's held in, but he leaps at the table- little hands rending the wood and cloth, little claws tearing at them hatefully- the empty place growing inside when they come back and chase him off- the destruction, and the pain in the little boy's eyes didn't make him feel better- he just feels cold and angry (and sad?) inside- then a shout- a sound behind him, picked through the sensitive little ears- eyes widen at the sound bearing down at him- angry howling, quick treading of pads in the cold May ground.

The rest is a bit of a blur- he's left staring in wonder at the little hands- his hands. He did something- a memory in the back of his mind, shouting at the whispering voice- but both are so faint he barely hears him- the former just a memory of the windfilled caves again, the second something dark smelling of copper.

Little Piccolo's scared- deep in his heart, he knows... whatever that was, is important- it's not just gonna go away. Not gonna go away until he dies. He just wishes he knew what it was.

And a blanket'd be nice.

9:42 PM 10/8/03


	8. She Just Wants to be

A snort, a snarl, a glare- eyes flicking about, then away again- a sigh, a slump, a stare-out-at-nothing.  
  
WhY can't I make up m'bloody mind...... S'ridiculous.  
  
The scenery's changed again. dunno how I got here. kinda quiet, kinda empty, kinda lonely. M'lonely alot anymore, ya know. S'the way a shade's life is, anymore.  
  
Course, not that I've met any other shades....   
  
I'll make sure it stays that way. noone else's allowed to end up like me..... Noone's allowed to end up like me. I'm fucked enough for us all.  
  
The wind's warm here- or maybe it's cold and m'just lost. Dunno where I am... I really could use a map about now...  
  
The wind's cold. I can feel it run up my spine. I know this place. I've seen it in anocha's fever-visions, dreams, nightmares. 'Pops has mentioned it rarely. he didn't like to talk about stuff like that in the time I knew him best. S'not much batter than a stranger now.  
  
The winds are cold, but the world is empty. It's all hills and chaos- all empty expanses of lifeless crags, a melody of black and gray madness- I have to land and pull my wings to my back to protect them in the fierce winds. It's horribly cold here. again, I wish I'd died with my shirt on. Then it wouldn't have been taken, and I'd have it to keep me warm in the winds of the end of the world.  
  
Yunzabit.  
  
what a creepy-ass place.  
  
Again, I wonder what they felt like in this place.  
  
S'not Someplace- my big empty lifeless nowhere, with the metallics and stagnant air and trees so old there aren't words to describe how. There are some things here, even if there don't seem to be. Or, at least... there were. a little boy.  
  
I shake my head and sigh, walking off through the hills and valleys of place I've seen in other people's dreams- barely feeling like anything but one myself.  
  
Dad and I got into a fight again. M'wounds have healed by now- I know if he saw me with them, he'd get upset- he doesn't like what I do to myself..... I just wanna spend some more time on my own before going back. I don't feel right yet.  
  
Course, when does THAT ever happen?  
  
despite the howl of the wind, it's deadly silent here- all I can hear is the pebbles parting around my bare feet, and the slightest chattering of my teeth. I hate being cold-blooded sometimes.  
  
Alot of stuff sucks, really.  
  
The sky's a twisted black melancholy melody of howls and whispers, a dying something twisting forever in the winds. Ya know, I think I like this place, cold or not.  
  
Sometimes I feel like a twisted wind-beast.  
  
The rocks are rough, they hurt m'feet- I scowl at them and walk on, sneaking into a cave and curling my wings around me for warmth. At least my chi has that use still, though it's harder to use. I miss chi blasts. Ya never realize how handy they can be till you can't use them anymore.  
  
It's not hard to pull some firewood out of the air though. Don't ask me how. Sometimes I can just do these things- depends how tired I am.  
  
M'pretty tired now..... want a blanket. Well, I don't have a damn blanket. oh well. I'll stick to my wings.  
  
the night's quiet when I drift off.  
  
Awakening's odd. For a moment I forget where I am... then I look out at the crying wind-beast and remember. Yunzabit heights. the end of the world.  
  
Well, so much for caution. My wings demand I fly and stretch them- so I walk out to a ledge and leap off.  
  
The winds catch me by surprise- I let out a shriek and tumble about for a moment before catching myself- my breath's taken away, and a rush spreads through my cold dead body- it's.... exhilarating. With a whoop, I throw out my wings and let the gods that be lead me where they may- mind drifting off into oblivion, cradled gently by the wild winds of death that sent anocha hurtling to the ground alone so many centuries ago.  
  
Kami doesn't ever come here anymore. I wonder why. It's odd, but I love it- the next I can recall, I'm on the ground on my back, kicking my feet up and laughing- the wildwindjoy pulsing through my aching body. It felt like the beast was trying to tear me apart..... Ah, well.  
  
It's quiet when I close the portal behind me- back in the city again, Satan City, post world war four, or five... who cares. I slouch my hands in m'pockets and begin the long trek up the apartment stairs. It's time to apologize to dad and Di. It'll make me feel like less of an ass.  
  
12:18 AM 9/28/03 


	9. Overwhelming

Note- Me again Sooooo much thanks for all your support! gives everybody candy If this note comes up as a giant block of text... oo I don't know what to say. That's not how I write it, but the site just decided to make my last one or so like that... bah. On to the stories.

First two are an odd contrast... very, very different chars... if you stuck them in a room together they'd rip each other apart. This chapter introduces a character only a few of you'd know. You'll know him better if my muses keep helping me get this fic out... Yeah, I'm writing. But it'll be a while before I finish... The song is "Overwhelming" by Everclear.

Week or so later I'll have "Ironic", Alanis Morissette for chapter 10. I had Harp on my mind when this one got stuck in my head... another look back at her. Chapter 11 is "Down in Flames", Semisonic. I don't feel I did the song justice. The character is everyone, and no one in particular... I never really cared to specify, even to myself.

* * *

It's cold in here. I wish it wasn't so... look around, see the world here- see your eyes, a faded smile in them. can you see me? I'm not sure. Soft blue smile, twitch of a sparkle- it resonates in my eyes.

I do... not know where I am anymore. Its oddly cold in here- I can handle the heat, I can... but the cold...

Shiver, drawling the cloak in tighter- wish it wasn't so damned cold in these mountains.

Mother's out here somewhere. But screw her, bitch. I send a glare out in her general direction and wish her the worst life can possibly throw her. Instead I just keep trudging through the snow, in search of those blue eyes I last glimpsed in the clouds and dark sky.

The Tsumite Tsubris are a foreboding place... I wonder briefly if it's wise to be back out here. A black speck of ash in a powder room- my cloak's not my friend here. Not like in the forest... Ah, I miss the forest. It's the shadows that embrace me there- hold me safe in their ebony and emerald, tones of my skin and eyes, dark warmth. This place's blindingly bright and empty- like the desert.

Ok, so I don't hate this place as much as I hate deserts. Godsdamn dead empty nothings... not my place. They belong to my sire.

A scowl on my face, and I think no more of family. I just look into the clouds for those soft blue eyes I glimpsed once, I'm not sure how long ago.

Steps go on, walking through the drifts, grumbling silently as I go on- godsdamn snow. Pain in my ass... how am I suppose to maneuver in this? If I was attacked, I'd be dead, that's all there is. Skilled as I am, I can't execute a decent swipe if I'm up to my damn knees in icy fluff.

I wonder briefly if she misses me. But shake my head... tread on. I'm a pox on the household- she only took me in because she felt sorry for me. Woman's a damn bleeding heart. Now that she's gone, there's no more reason for me to stay- that's why I'm out here. But then I'm left to wonder why I only left when she died...

And why I'm out here searching for her blue eyes and raven hair.

Gods I'm hopeless sometimes...

A sigh. There's not much out here- it's quiet. The slight sound echoes about the canyons- all over, reflecting in a way that makes me wince- it doesn't really bother my ears, but the sound...

I'm not suppose to make sound. I'm suppose to be silent- my sensei taught me that. I'm to be unseen, unheard- it's the way an assassin is effective- it doesn't work if they see you.

And here I am a black spot on a white mountainside, seated and sighing.

Great job, Scythe.

I'm an odd one...

Canteen away- walking off thorough the mountain- there are no trails, and even if there were I'd avoid them- it's not good practice. I'm putting out enough of a risk jut being here- and I didn't see her on a trail. She came to me in the midst of all this emptiness.

She picked me up on the mountainside.

I can somewhat remember the spot... mmh. Somewhere around here- I'm not perfect. Not at this anyway. Blade fighting's one thing, but this is another.

Just sit back in the snow, ignoring that sick wet cold trying to run through me- slight chi-flicker to keep myself from freezing to the spot as I look up to the sky. It's cold and blue and empty- there are no clouds this high. I can see the world panned out around me in all it's whiteness- but I'm not impressed. Know this chikyuu, I've lived here all my life- and it still says nothing to me. as much as nothing, really.

It's cold in my shoes. I make a mental note to re-bind them soon.

Ah, well, there's no one about... I brush my hood off, pull off the mask- and sigh, breathing in the frigid air. It's so damn cold out here...

Mh. Close my eyes, lay back- blade close at hand. If I was attacked, I could swing it in a breath... I'm always prepared. it's my nature- has been since mother's drills as a hatchling. a snort- mother. Gods I hate her. Worthless bitch of a whore...

Eyes slit lightly- face flat. my face is always flat... for a breath I imagine I'm back where I was years ago, laying half-dead somewhere around this spot, somewhere on this hillside, and I can almost hear the shift of her feet, the wind against her coat and shawl, see her sapphire eyes peer down at me all full of worry- she always did worry too much.

... I think I miss her.

But of course I don't. I don't miss people...

.. Maybe I do. a bit. Just her.

Not anyone else- just her.

I did owe her- she saved my life. Plucked me off this mountainside and took me into her home- so perhaps I just wish I could repay that.

Her heart was too gentle.

She died before I repay her.

And I'm left sitting here wondering where a nameless blade's suppose to go once it's contracts wear out.

Mother's done with me, she ran off with some silver-eyed mage and hasn't bothered me since (may they both rot in hell...), sister's dead at childhood, sensei taught me all he was paid to, and she's... dead. Has been for a time.

I don't keep track of time when not on a job. There's no reason to.

And I'm left here in the snow wondering who I am, and why I'm sitting here looking for raven hair and sapphire eyes that shimmer with gentleness.

I know nothing of those things, outside her...

It's cold. Need a fire- just close my eyes and drift off... meditation.

I don't sleep.

That's what I keep telling myself.

Like I say that I don't miss her.

... Maybe I don't. It's just the debt.

It's cold in the Tsumite Tsubris.

Colder in here.

12:19 PM 10/26/03


	10. Ironic

eyes closed, it's dark inside- the little underground world without windows, sterilized white walls- outside the one room, anyway. Bara lounges in the bedroom, eyes silted close- the air smells of her and he and little else- save a tint of steel and roses. purrs, nuzzling her face into the deep black engulfing pillows- breathing in the thick scent, relishing it- he'll be coming 'home' soon again. sly grin playing on her features- the dim lights flickering in jet eyes as a deep purr resonates across the dark room. mmh ..... long day. noone else today- been waiting for him.  
  
slink to stand, stretching the slick curves- showing off, as always- force of habit, she thinks with a shrug. never done it any other way. slink around the bed with slow steps, feet padding like a cat's on the cool floor- the walls draped with velvets and suede and silks- a few of her favorite things- all in tones of black, gray, and red- her fingers brush by the old petals from the first rose he gave her, in the holster for her dagger- small little sigh breath- scent's still rich in the faded ebony petals.  
  
stroll out of the warm little dark room, head swaying this way and that- slinky black and emerald shape sauntering through the empty walls- a flicker over the silver-eyes child of theirs- the girl's reading again. she lets her be- fingers tapping against a key panel that isn't there, whispering a little spell- out into the forest. assault of scents, sights, smells- the warm air of the night seeming so odd after the sterilized white of the rooms- stops by a stream, drinking- lounging back, eyes silted- and again her mind wanders,.... to his.  
  
what an odd man she has....  
  
a chuckle, the voice silky in the night's air- quite an odd one.... all silver eyes and silence. what else to say... it's not like he says much more... well, if there's ANYTHING she knows about him...  
  
wild grin twitching over the lips- fangs glinting lightly in the silver starlight- a familiar silent voice sliding into her ears. a roll of her head, a smirk- slight purr in her voice, sliding to her feet and leading him away.  
  
She's alone again when she wakes up- a shrug, it's normal. man likes his space..... Mariyonich's gone as well- he must have her with him. shrug- slipping outside, testing the dagger with her finger- flicks the others to heal the wound, slipping off into the darkness- there's conquests to be made... plenty of men left in the world....  
  
easy enough- poor sap never sees it coming- she snorts- it's what he deserves, for thinking he could take over... hah... a MAN, controlling HER.... that'll be the day- sour snarl, eyes narrowed- spits on the body as she tosses it away to the beasts- she's had her way.  
  
And then again, she thinks of him- it's almost odd. been happening so much more frequently since she brought him here.... for a moment, chin to fist, introspection in the quieted jet eyes- she wonders if this was the right choice,. but then a flash of memory, a remembered sensation- chill in her spine, grin on the lips, eyes flashing the same. Who cares? So what if he lives there.... not like she cares about him- he's a reliable, and damn good if she'd say so herself, fuck.....  
  
Time passes, nights upon nights- there in the evening, gone in the morning- the occasional eye-quirking conversation, which usually ends as the meetings often do- in the bedroom. routine,. almost.....  
  
though more and more, she finds herself thinking of him in the silence of the daytime.... growing less and less satisfied with the casual strangers she takes for her own when he's away. Something... a pain in her head... something odd, when she looks into those blank eyes.... something that makes her shiver, in a way she's not used to. and again, she wonders what she's gotten into since that first meeting and encounter in the tower in the snow..  
  
a shoulder roll- and she gets on with her life, everything the same- until a sword ends up at his throat. then everything changes.  
  
She's not sure whether she's furious or irritated- both, neither, fist-clenching anger- how dare he play like that with her head..... he survived, by the way. she made sure of that- had to kick his ass for making her fall in love with him.  
  
bitter, so bitter at first.... but as the days and months mount, she's become too entangled in his eyes to care- yes, bitter, but she wouldn't trade those silver eyes and silent words for the world- though the bitterness shifts- he never says it.  
  
drives her furious.... she knows he cares.... it's in his actions, yet absent at the same time.... his words are something she could never count on for words... they're as dead as ever. but ooh, she loves it....  
  
a spiral- twined in his scent, his eyes, his hands, his words, the things never said- things she knows, trysts in the silver moonlight, rose petals and steel and blood twisting into a sensuous melody that clings her in the mystery of such an oddly unexplainable, mysterious, immortal man- until the day.  
  
until the bond snaps.  
  
and the whole world shatters in a crater-field splattered in indigo blood, scraps of cloth stained the tone all she's left to find. the days drag on, and the months, the seasons and years- and noone speaks a word.  
  
odd, to think how bitter she once was of love.....maybe she saw it coming... don't kid yourself... you never saw this... if you had, you wouldn't have let him go.... not that you did in the first place....  
  
whispers of a curse the last words in her hands to him- dull eyes, blank heart, silence in the snow and hills and mountains and ice and sky, clouds and flakes and stars and the moon, the world drenched in silver and the blood seeping from a broken heart. she's silent, old, worm and broken- the words don't come, because there's noone left to speak to- Mariyonich's ever as silent as her father is- was.....  
  
sitting in the stone tower, staring out at the snow- not even the wind whispers here this night. the silver moonlight flickers in the scenery, prism through a chain, a stone draped in her hands- indigo blood tone. the only sound's a quiet broken voice, speaking, though she still flows like silk- force of habit... speaking to the little pulsing silent thing clutched to her heart- a brush of a kiss to the cold surface, and a sigh- when it all started, she never dreamed it'd end like this. not that she ever thought of how it'd end.... it just... happened. Does she regret it? she doesn't know. does she regret him.....  
  
no.  
  
even if he did die, the asshole.  
  
beautiful, horrible, wonderful asshole........  
  
flicker of the moon in the sky, the monochrome landscape pale against the brilliance of the indigo bloodstone- held before her eyes, silent jet eyes that've lost their luster.  
  
And again, she wonders what she's gotten herself into.  
  
7:53 PM 8/23/03 


	11. Down in Flames

we were gonna live, you and I, we were gonna live long and wild and out our whole lives, we were gonna take this damn world as out our own, but you broke it- you broke the pact, lied to me, and I'm left alone in the wreckage of this love and there's nothing left but fire and ash and death. Now you're in the ground and I'm standing here by the spot, I can smell your singed hair in the ash-laden air, imagine little flecks of cloth on your skin burning as you burst through the atmosphere- wings of flame, laughing out loud as your vocal cords still work.  
  
I can see your bones burning to powder, raining down on me as the little ash-flakes talking all about me, the deadest of snowflakes. Little spirits charred beyond all recognition- a black rain, as the twisted bits of metal fall from the sky.  
  
I never imagined it would be like this.  
  
Ever.  
  
All that's left of you is the ash I'm walking through, and the pounding pain in my heart- I tried to warn you. I told you it wasn't safe, but you went up anyway- and I'm standing by the hole and They try to pretend you're down there but I know you're not, you're still going through the sky, flying alive and free, as dead as a doornail and twice as sharp. You're digging into my heart, a hammer of ash and devastated shrapnel- driving deeper and deeper into my heart, freezing it from ever feeling- from ever knowing or experiencing this thing known as love again. My heart died when you disappeared in a flurry of light and smoke and magic.  
  
And I'm standing here by the hole in the ground and I know you're not down there and I'm curious who is- there's a coffin, there's a crater, but it's not you in there love- I know it and you know it and we all know it but me.   
  
I don't know where you are.  
  
And the hole in the ground's empty save for dirt- there's no coffin at all and it's all a madness medley of fireworks and magic and plane crashes and a flurry of ashflakes like snow in hell.  
  
My name is nothing.  
  
I know you're not down there. I loved you, I really did. But I'm Nothing and all I know is nothing and noone can tell me whether or not that's really you down there because it can't be. I loved you.  
  
If you were dead I would have seen you- I live in a little part of hell, I'm a lonely son of a bitch and I know you're there, I can see your hair floating by me in little disgusting trails of incense laced with poison made from forget-me-not perfume.  
  
I have no name. I'm not even nothing. I'm-   
  
That's all. There's an itch in my leg but I ignore it- the tremble in this hollow soul of mine calls out foe deamons and madness.  
  
I can see your alabaster skin turn black as the fire wraps around you, flaking you away into so many specks of ash.  
  
I can do anything- I move mountains and destroy monsters and kill all sorts of beats- we fly and we take over the world and we kill the good guy and get the girl, but we can't stop a single crashing plane.  
  
Why you were on that damned thing in the first place I don't know love- I could have taken you. But you wanted to go, you wanted us to be more normal, so I gave in- but the fire didn't kill me even as it consumed you. I couldn't move fast enough when the engine failed- I could already smell you burning up in the atmosphere and the chaos- hear mothers screaming for their children as my alabaster lover burned away into nothing, into stinking rotted hair and forget-me-nots and bleeding hearts and all manner of other little flowers with morbid names and morbid memories- nightshade, posies, black roses and sunflowers. bright happiness, a deeper agony and stench that swarms my brain-  
  
I can see your eyes evaporating, falling away into ash and chalk and all manner of madness lover.  
  
I loved you.  
  
Noone else understood us- noone else tried to, because we were different- I can see you burning, hear you say my name, thought it never passed those beautiful lips- my angel, my beautiful angel- ash floats around us like feathers in the haze of smoke and babies and technology all blown to bits by a simple technical problem.  
  
I damn them to hell and stand here by this hole in the ground and wonder if you're really in there.  
  
I am an empty shell awaiting your re-arrival and wishing you would come back to love me but I know that death is death this time and you're not coming back to me anymore. And the agony is of the exquisite kind- a perfect torture a true madness screaming at me through all angles of the day and night as the ash rains down around us like snow that's rising straight out of hell.  
  
And this is the way the world ends for me and I'm left standing here with no words and no eyes and no lips and lots of pain cause I've been trapped by tragedy and emptied into nothing at all, my own little sarcophagus that little love and less sense because the cat's crying for you love she misses the way you'd stroke her back and coo at her and all in that little voice.  
  
I miss the way you'd fight with me and kick me in the back and bitch at me.  
  
I can smell your fire wings as they're enveloping you like sulfur acid burns at paper left in a flame. I'm tired of this outside and inside but I don't know what else to say, so I crawl into the hole you left and climb back up.  
  
I'm cold and lonely and tired smelling you rotten flesh and crying into my hands.  
  
9:46 PM 10/30/03 


	12. Everything About You

Note- Alright. This one, I wanted to post by itself, because it takes a bit more explanation... I'd never even heard of this band before a few hours before writing it. But when the song came on, it snapped my head around, practically screaming "WRITE!" at me- so I grabbed the song offline (gotta be able to listen to it while I'm typing) and went at it. Later bought the cd and realized everything else on it was shit, but that's a story for another time...

If "Age of Innocence" was my hopes for Lute's future, this was the bitter point in time when he was HEY LOOK MA I'M A KAZOO -_crazyface_-, bottom-of-the-barrel worst he ever got. The title song provided a basis, but memories and quotes from other songs I related closely to him and this situation found their way in... if anybody can recognize and name them, I'll give you a cookie

I warn you right now that it's... bizarre, and very violent, and I'd call it emo-ey now but holy hell he was so far out of his head back when I wrote this that he didn't know what way was up or if he was even still dead or alive... It was all a very bad downward spiral in the poor nut's little head. He's better now, I promise. Got a steady girl and stopped bleeding and everything.

I'll try to write some happy ones eventually, really!! You're probably sick of these screwed-up chars...

The song's "(I hate) Everything About You" (I know, I know, emo...) by Three Days Grace. Have fun!

* * *

There's a darkness in the sky today. I can see it from miles away, but I can't see through it- there's nothing out there but I'm longing to see into that dark empty mist fog haze, I can't see inside the closer I fly the colder it gets- I'm sucked in alive and then there's a scream- the wind, or is it me- I can remember the smell and the tears, vanilla perfume and that kind of grinning smile- vanilla, like Pix...

I never would have guessed you the type for vanilla. something you picked up after I died I guess...

There's something cold out here.

I can see you down there, hear the Blurry whisper of the words everything is blurry and everyone's insane. You don't know what you did to me, you didn't mean to do it, you meant to give me something precious, an experience- you didn't expect this obsessive stalker, this ghost to follow your every breath, to stand mesmerized at your eyes and your smile, my lady in red. I saw you dancing that night, spinning and twirling in the shifty lights of the dance floor, you beautiful thing- you haunt my mind and my dreams and my fantasies- I'm locked inside this and I want you so badly- intoxicated by the smell of you, by the feel of your hair- I'm going mad again, Pix.

Why did you do this to me.

Why did I do this to you...

Tap tap the sound of steps in a lighted hall, the ballroom, the dance floor, your feet slide across it seductively, I see you dancing in his arms and all I can see is you Pix, my angel in red. My sayiajin angel, my curse. And you can be the remedy and I can be the enemy and we can go live as nothing and you can be the wannabe and I can be the remedy and he can go to hell for all I care but I'm the one in hell here, Pix- can you hear me?? Can you hear me, you rich glamour girl, you beautiful earthbound angel who dances on dance floors in red dresses in other men's arms and does this to me- you monster, you bastard, you killer- you're slaying me and I want to slit your throat but I can't Pix, because your skin is so beautiful, I just want to caress it and fondle you and love you love me please love me I need this I need you

I'm a bastard now, you've taken me in your soft womb and expelled me back into the cold world and now what will you do with your bastard, Pix. What will you do with me now that your fight with him's over, the very day after... I can barely believe he doesn't smell me in your bed, but then I remember that I'm not real and he couldn't see me if I was right in front of him screwing you blind...

My goddess of the Grecian temple, my lady in red, my magdalena, all I can see is you and you're my novocain, you take away the pain for a little, my goddess, my black madonna.

I sing the words of the same songs that haunt me to my dying days, but I don't die- there's cricks in my sides from sitting over that sunlight you have, the one above your bed where I watch you walk through your room naked, just to catch a glimpse of that beautiful thing I'll never have again because you don't want me- I can't do or say anything around you. except to desire you and lust for you, to want you and your perfect goddess cream skin my goddess in red.

You could be the remedy but it's just the diaries of a madman I'm obsessed trapped here and I want you so bad my angel but I'm the angel with the wings and the dead eyes the dead self and I don't know where to go if I can't have you, ravage you

What do I do my goddess, the woman in the temple I'd worship at your feet my Pix, Pix, Pix, Pix, pixpixpixpixpixpixpixpixpixpixpixpixpixpixpixpixpixpixpixpixpxipxipxipxipxipxipixpixpixpixpipxpixpxipixpixpixpixpixpixpixpixpixpixpixpixpixpixpoxpix...

All that I can think of, my goddess I want you so badly I want to knock you down and scream, to rip myself to ribbons if only you'd smile at me, I'd do anything but I've already done too much and I stare down the sunlight as the moon filters over your skin, hear the cords of Blurry playing, the swish of a torrent of that aqua emerald sapphire indigo magenta goddess hair in a thousand shades of all things good in the word.

You're not the most wonderful person in the world, you're a killer and a flirt and you lie to your friends and get into fights too much and cheat on your husband and tell him off in front of crowds and screw one of his Best friends to just get a taste of something new, but I love you my goddess, you're the cure and I'm addicted to your painkillers like a junkie gone into relapse

AND THE SAME SONGS KEEPS PLAYING ON THE RADIO AND IT'S JUST ONE MORE SAD SONG BUT I'M SCREAMING THE WORDS AND BLEEDING ALL OVER YOUR CARPET BECAUSE I CAN'T BREATHE LIKE THIS I CAN'T LIVE LIKE THIS

But I'm dead... so I guess it doesn't matter...

Nothing matters...

I'm Nothing. the Nothing- a nameless faceless shade who no one even sees because they don't believe in me, a hollow empty little conceited child who can't pull out of his little fantasies to take care of anything, who takes the easy way out... petty suicide, forget my family, I'm my own petty suicide and this is the way it goes as the beat pulses on and I lay here outside your window by the skylight watching you sleep naked and telling myself I can't just go down there and fuck you like my head's screaming at me to because I love you and you don't want me my goddess, the lady in the pink robes, the woman with the rainbow hair that trellises down around her like nothing imaginable.

My goddess, my Pix, why've you done this to me I can smell your sister's borrowed Vanilla perfume on your skin and I can see you through rainy glass but I can't touch you because you don't want me and I hate you for it but what else is there to do Pix, I love you. I love you I love you I loveyouiloveyouiloveyouiloveyouiloveyouiloveyouiloveyouiloveyoudoyouknowiloveyou

And the red dress is in the corner, I want to steal it and wrap myself in it and smell you all around me and imagine how your hands felt that one night you touched me but all I can remember now is what you did when I hurt you, you tore me apart and knocked me down and carved your name into my back so that I'd always have you with me, the darkness in your eyes, the revulsion when you looked at me ran deep because I love you and I didn't mean to, I didn't know how to stop myself, I know I tried to rape you but please forgive me...

Pix, Pix, I love you and I'm lost and scared and I can feel all these cold eyes staring through me, and you're walking forward with that kitchen knife and my eyes are crying but my brain's just numb, and I just stand there and let you stab me, rip into my wings- it hurts, but not as much as it would if you'd just said no and walked away any never touched me again. I can feel you so close- it hurts so badly but the blood calms me- it hurts, but I'm already dead and I can't die...just convulse on the floor and scream in the way the agony's so erotic- want to stab myself for calling it that, but it's you Pix, and your body is so close to mine, like the time you pulled me down into your room and we had sex together, it was as close as we are now, but now your eyes are full of hate and pain and I can't see through the blood- it hurts, Pix.

I love you.

I love you, and you're killing me, but I can't die Pix... I died, I killed me, and you killed my sanity- all that's left is the screaming and your tears of anger and all this blood over everything... you looked so beautiful in that red dress, but now it's indigo and it's different, I can feel myself drifting but there's nowhere else to go.

All that's left is this flesh and my battered wings, my soul.

Do I have a soul? I tried to rape you... I'm a monster...

They called my 'pops a monster... but I'm more a monster, I hurt you and made you cry. You're strong, you're the strongest person I've ever known, you never cry, not even when your baby died- but you're crying because I hurt you and I can't think anymore, I can still smell the borrowed vanilla through the blood, taste your scent through the copper Pix my love.

Please... Pix... I can feel this and feel you, though I'm going numb I can still feel you and I can't die...

You killed me already, I can't die, just bleed... is that enough for you, my goddess, my lover, think up your own ending and let me know just how you feel.

Those are the words you screamed to him in the bar that night, the night you walked away and sat in your room, you invited me to come down with a coy smile... I want to throw them back at you and see the look on your face, but all I can think of is this pain and you're my novocain and I want another taste but I feel guilty and...

And I ramble on and on, mind screaming wildfire as the words of a thousand different songs of madmen and stalkers and lovelost souls screaming to beautiful women up on pedestals they'll never have, I'm one of them, standings down here, the words all jumbling together in my brain and shutting everything down...

I love you, Pix. Just one touch, one taste of you my novocain, my soul's a fuse and it's going up in flames, I can't think anymore, but I can't feel the knife- you've left me here for dead but I already am love...

Every step you take I'll be watching you.

The mist in the distance is gone, and I can only see the cold sunless day's sky hovering above me, damiiiiing me.

Endless price I'll have to pay for loving you, Pix.

There will come a time when the whole world dies, when everything ends. one day this universe is gonna suck everything back into the tiny spot it began as, and there will be nothing left of you, except my memories. I'll remember the touch of your skin when noone else knows your name. When noone speaks your language, when they can't speak at all, when the last roach curls up and dies, I'll walk these barren plains and remember the taste of you on my lips, carry the scars you engraved into my back.

This is my curse.

What choice do I have

10:43 PM 11/15/03


	13. Plenty

I actually wrote this about a month or two ago in school, while we were suppose to be doing a free write, and is now one of my favoites. The song I was humming to myself is Sarah Mclachlan's "Plenty". More SOC will be posted as I write them and deem them appropriate to post.

* * *

Her eyes are closed as the water passes over, trickle fall click of drops on the stone, just sitting up on the old stone. Water's cold, only chi-warmed so it's not too pleasant outside the little bubble. She doesn't like to be cold. Reminds her too much of death.

A sigh, standing again, water dripping down green legs, plinking on the floor- even inside the bubble you can hear the storm howling outside like a hissed snarl whisper, slamming it's shoulder into the old black stone, trying to tumble it down to the ground, bury it over and make the whole place as if it's never existed save as a memory of the dead and those who'd rather forget it. But it's silent inside the halls, there's no one to speak or be spoken to, no living things save an empty woman who'd rather just sink back into the warm water and forget this ever happened in the first place. Half expects him to come back down, slip in with her.

Why would he. He's dead.

The wind's cold hammering against the walls- plink, plink. Warm water hitting against the floor as she slumps back into the water, immersing herself and trying to forget. Forget this place, forget him. It'd be better that way.

Plink plink. Water gets cold as it hits the ground- she'd rather keep the water warm then the floor. Soft pleasant warm water brushing over her like hands she remembers too well, like his. Like him.

Wince slightly, body pulling out of the water again and slumping in a crouch, arms curled over head, shudder to the back. Why, why. Why'd this have to come back up again? Plink, plink, howl. Cold wind and warm water and chilled heart. What's she kidding?? This isn't going away. Isn't going away, she's not gonna get over it, sweet gods he was everything, everything she had to care about on this godsforsaken planet and now he's gone, he's dead and there's not even the dignity of a body to bury. And it's not as if he was spared the indignity of the flesh being torn away over time- it happened sooner, and by a monster far worse than any little beetles or worms or maggots ever could dare. There's scars in her mind burned, seared from where she remembers the pain stung her, tore her to emotional ribbons- the soulbond's still burning, still aching, it was only a month ago….

Mont. A month ago, and she's still crying screaming when she wakes up in the middle of the night because she's cold, she's cold and the chill in her bones is a terrifying feeling that won't go away because his body's not there, she can't feel that warm skin on her or his eyes chilling her- as cold as those dead silvers were she's colder still with the barraging wind and this way, it hurts- it stings her eyes and gauges out tears and burns her throat. She still remembers his kisses, the ones he always let her lead because he liked to tease her by being unlike any man she'd ever encountered…..

Harp shudders slightly in the water, form shaking, causing ripples and wavers in the water. Plink plink into the water, salt tears- hand groping out, clutching around something curled in the cloak she'd been wearing- pulsing stone, little bloodstone, lips brushing over it with little kisses, shake of her body, shivering even though the water's warm and the air's warm around her, it's as warm as anywhere but the fire still smoldering pulse pulse in her shattered soulbond. A month. A month. Gods, was the rest of her life going to be like this….. could it get better? No… it can't… it hurts……. Oh gods, why……

A scream rings through the silent black halls, shivering around the stone long after she falls silent, shaking without a word.

2/14/2004, 2:14 PM


	14. The Kids Aren't Alright

Did this recently on an impulse after the midi came on my playlist- "The kids aren't alright", by the Offspring. A lot behind this, things that won't make sense to most people, but I'm fond of how it came out.

* * *

Red sky. There's a red sky and it colors everything, color is a force of the unnatural and I've never quite understood why it doesn't play fair with the rest of us. Y'know? It's like this, it sits there so beautifully on such ugly things like death and blood in the light of the day. Why's it have to look like that? Why can't it be a nasty grey, not that glimmering crimson all across the walls and the sidewalk? I've never understood that, y'know. I've just always loved how it looks.

Ah well, enough of that- I've got other things to do.

S'quiet, strolling this city. Nobody pays it much heed at all, anything. They've had the caring drained from them in all these years. I know th'feeling.

Mh. Wonder why it's still around. The buildings were old, they should have been torn down. Hasn't worked yet, caus I haven't wanted it to. It's never gonna fall while I'm still around. And they don't have enough money anyway, y'know? There's a few that do, but they're so greedy they hold it all to themselves as the city rots around them. S'a lovely place, ain't it? Makes me laugh. S'why I come here still. Use t'be to talk, but now s'just to laugh at these idiots.

Most of it's screwed over by now, pretty blank and full of soot and shit. Coal burning... how droll. Guess the electric network's gotten that bad. Mh....

I see hues of tan and taupe and sepia, wood and soot and burnt umber, mauve and brick and a few hundred others sitting in the rocks and the brick of the walls. Use t'be people'd make things of one color- they're kinda getting desperate now. I step over a lump of someone in my way and pass on through the sidewalks.

I remember this place. It was always a mess, but it use to have a heart left, a will to live. But anyone who cared died because they cared. They got picked off by the vultures and the cunning bastards who don't like people who care, people with spirit and soul. S'all about soul, it's about that kind of thing, I see their faces in the clouds sometime. Still don't know where you are. Wish I did. Still got questions for you.

There's a little girl sitting curled up in a trash heap. I pass her a glance, recall something old, and pass on my way. Nobody tells me t'stay, so I don't. M'a wandering soul, and I always will be now. Nothing left to keep my feet on the ground, no reason to stay anywhere. S'no longer a surrogate home. But I'm not depressed. Not really. It's a feeling of nothing that's almost invigorating- caring can hold y'down but this way I can keep doing whatever I want. I don't have to worry about him anymore, I don't need to keep coming back here to check on him, to make sure he's not hurt or lost, make sure he's alright and safe and happy. He is, wherever he is now. I know it. He deserves that much dignity, dignity in this. Didn't have it before, so I kiss it up to the sky and walk on my way.

S'where the ground gets rough. Nobody even pretends to keep care of things here- reminds me of my head sometimes. There's shit and rubble everywhere; the sane ones stay out of here caus this is where they pushed the psychos. It's easy enough to leap over the separating wall, and the world is mine again. I feel a pair of eyes on me, but ignore them- psha, who cares. S'alright. I'm alright. Really, I am. I feel like I know this place.

The ground gets darker here, where the buildings were built closer together. I have to pull my wings in sometimes to avoid things that've fallen from the high rooftops. It's getting heavier on my back, but I pay it no mind. S'not why I'm here. S'just a thought of my own, I wanted it. Shadows lay blue and purple on the stone, and I can smell the asphalt where it's cracked open in massive scars. Wonder if you ever came here. Maybe you'd recognize one of these. Heh.... S'enough of that. It's too crowded down here- I can barely see the sky between the massive ruined towers that refuse to fall. This is what people back centuries ago were scared of, dad- not being able to see the sky. They thought the buildings would rise so high that it would cover it and cage us is. They don't much like being caged in. Neither do I. Heh. I doubt you did either. S'why you left, isn't it. I do wish you'd have let me know where y'went. Maybe I coulda followed. But now there's no more keeping my feet on the ground, I'm free of those chains and there's only an ache of melancholy in the back of my heart, and the weights on my back and my chest.

The buildings fell here, like giant sequoia in the forest. There's a gaggle of people here, all staring up in wonder at the red sky above, like deer in the headlights or a small child who sees an airplane for the first time. I can see the sky again. None of them see me, and if they did they don't knowledge me. Mh. Ah well. Nothing left to keep me here, dad. Nothing at all.

I can smell the sky again, pooling down through the shaft of light peeking over the remains of the stone and concrete and steel giant. There's almost a bit of a plant, grass or something by my feet- it's mostly dead, but s'there. It exists; it's fighting like you did. Maybe it isn't going to get anywhere, but it's trying.

The sword's heavier than I remember as I pull it out of the old sheath. Massive thing- never quite know where ya got it. But it's too large for my hands- my hands are too small to handle it properly, but I can hold it. The old blood of a thousand or maybe just a dozen dead things that never quite washed off sits there, and I can see it because of the light here. It glows a cool blue against the red sky. If you could see me now, I wonder what you'd say. I can see myself in the old metal, but does it work both ways? Will it tell me where you are, or will I continue wandering?

It speaks not a work to me, and I have nothing further to say to it, a few swipes to test the weight again and marvel for a moment before it goes over my back again.

My eyes raise to the sky, both open, and I find myself wondering what to do now. So much time, eternity is. Forever, past the sun and the moon and the stars, past these buildings and their dust. What will the end be like, and what will become of me? Even if you don't know the answers, I doubt you would have pretended to. Ah, well. Life goes on, endless parade. Watched them for decades, ya know. I don't remember the time anymore. I just remember an endless sea of faces is the starlight. Starlight. Guess I've been standing here a while. The sky takes on a moody purple haze at night, pink where the stars and the moon light it. It gets bloody cold out here at night. I know how you kept warm. But I can't exactly do the same, can I. How do I keep warm, dad?

With my wings.

They open, and eyes closed, I release myself to the sky.

Take me where you may, Mi'Lady. There's nothing left to hold me here.

12:04 PM 6/22/2004


	15. Pancake

Another piece I did, this time while staring out the window of a plane taking off from San Francisco with my CD player on. The song has absolutely nothing to do with this... but I like how it came out. I guess I can hand write these. Lute again. Song is "Pancake", by Tori Amos.

* * *

Lightning as seen from the sky is terrifying.

Here you are, up in the whiteness so still, the whole silent world unfurled around you, you and your eyes, and then the crackle, the flash in the corner of your eye that jerks you around. You stare for a moment- did I see what I thought I did? That white-hot stripe, did I imagine it? You stare, tensed- so high up, you're exposed, but then nothing more and you rest again. Nothing, a trick of my eyes. And then your eyes roll back to the expanse of white.

Clouds glow with the sun. So much brighter, so much colder. Sometimes you think that maybe, just maybe you could fall down onto those curls and cotton feathers and yield into their furls, but logic tells you no. A trick of the air.

Sometimes I wonder about my logic. How frizzed is my brain by now? Heh. Crazy shit.

The sky. I got lost again, I was talking about the sky...

Glow. That's it. The glow. Have you ever seen it? Gods, I wish you could fly like I do. Chi is one thing, wings are another. Wings have such a natural feel, it's part of you like you couldn't imagine if you haven't felt it.

The sun's so fucking blinding... gods. It's amazing. I'm here above the clouds and the horizon's a rainbow, blue to green to gold to horizon mandarin, marmalade. Over the peaks and valleys it repeats, these colors on these mountains without substance. Chi'd just send them scattering. With wings you just float, brush by, you can touch them and feel the great dark cotton fluffs for the imposters they are.

I gotta take you up here sometime. Show you the clouds. We need to do more together... I need to see you. As much as I avoid you, I really do care about you. Just memories of her. You know the drill.

The ground's disappeared beneath me now as I continue my one-person narrative. It's indigo in mute, you only watch the glimmer of the water as that blinding white globe and it's halo reach down to caress the ripples. Brush them lovingly, pull them close and make them beautiful. You make me feel beautiful. Nothing glows like those eyes can. And yeah, I have a hair fetish, so sue me. I like touching it, brushing it and it makes you smile at me. What could be better?

Now the grey-indigo is everywhere, and only patches stand higher, like islands in the storm. Islands. Always islands. Bad memories. Not gonna think about him here, not now. I'm not gonna get torn down now.

Your hair. I was thinking about your hair. Yeah. That helps. Distractions help. I hope you don't try to get it help because it looks good like that. I love when you do the ponytail thing, I can tease you by smacking it about. You don't really get mad, but you act like it. You never really get mad at me... I'm glad for it. The sky gets redder as the sun comes down, as the clouds stretch in front of it like dark banners on a battlefield abandoned. Red stretching muted in every direction, dyed dark in the blood of the dead. Crazy shit humans. Nuts, aren't they?

If only they could really fly.

The rivers now. I love rivers. They're glowing up soft muddy brown at me, twirling like ribbons on a little girl's dress, too long and catching the wind and flailing wildly around her. You ever see that? It's adorable. I wish June had worn dresses when she was little. But she was my little tomboy. Heh.

Ocean now. It looks like an ocean. You ever see the ocean at the changing of the guard? The whole place glows out of sync, before the sun rises and after it sets everything glows like day. You ever see lightning at sea? The way it branches more than eyes can count, more than you can see, more than your own eyes can understand? It's insane. Storms are amazing. They're wild. Do you ever feel wild? Heh... course you do. It's you. S'your nature, your blood. I'm always drawn to the wild women with the twisty tails and those great green eyes, emeralds. The sky's a beautiful shade of blue. I feel at peace, even as the thoughts of she and you mingle in my mind. For once I don't feel guilty- I just feel alive. A good wind can do that to you, ya know,

Blood red on the horizon, it's glowing. I can feel it on my arms, my face and my eyes. Blood red in a net of those indigo-grey clouds. Beautiful color. The human lights are coming on down and under the clouds. You don't live there- so I fly past, turning off to Paozo, the mountains, the trees. They're different back Home, but I still feel alright here, even as the crimson engulfs my edges, makes me glow. See you in a few love.

8/8/04 8:41pm


	16. Strange

Wrote this one on an impulse while listening to "Strange", by Tori Amos.

* * *

I suppose it's always going to be this way.

If only there was some sense of what was to come, if there had been some warning. if I had but known of what would be coming to me. I didn't. Strange thing... Usually I always know. Damn you. Damn you for doing this to me. I'm stuck here now- you can't capture me! You can't hold me here with your eyes, you can't. Noone holds me, ever, I'm a wild little bitch and noone holds me captive, not even with those eyes....

Damnit. I'm at a loss now, hon. What do you expect me to do with this? I'm stuck here for all eternity, do you think I'm going to back down? No way by the hells, bastard. I'm not budging a step, you can't make me no matter how much you wish so- I'm not scared by your threats. So what if it's fate- I don't believe in fate. We're masters of our own fucking destinies, hon. Who says you have to go? Stay here. Noone can make you go but yourself, and I'm not letting you do that. I'm stuck with you, you're stuck with me, that's the way it is and how it's going to be all through these damned lives we live. So we're damned. So what? We always have been, before we even had a chance to earn it. Sometimes mothers turn a blind eye, it's called favoritism. There's the smiling little pampered brat in every family, and there are the children noone ever speaks of for fear that it may remind them of how bad a parent they are. I've seen it of my own flesh, the way they speak of that child-of-mine, the mad one. He frightens them, so they hide his existence away and pretend he isn't there, in the forest just outside their eyes, lurking like death. But Death isn't inescapable- you don't need to fucking go, how many times do I have to tell you that? You're an idiot, you know that?

You don't have to go. You can stay here with me, with us. So what if you did something they didn't like? Look at you! Tell them to shove it and keep on with the way life's been..... It's been fine. You didn't do anything fucking wrong, like they mean it. I'll hate you forever if you go, you stupid bitch! I won't let you go and die on me, when I fucking need you this much!

Just.... gods, Ta-kun. You don't need to go. there's no reason to fucking go, how many times do I have to keep saying it? Until you listen? Until you finally listen to me? Until you finally tell me the truth? Until you finally say that you love me and it was stupid never to tell me? You're a fucking idiot, hon. An idiot, you and your eyes.

Gods. What do you want me to say, hon? What more do you want me to go through to prove that I'm not leaving? You say that you aren't planning anything.... I know you aren't, but sometimes I still don't believe you, because you're lying. I know that you love me, You have to love me, that's all there is to it. The things you've done for me, the time we've spent is this rotting back monolith in this frigid snow, I died for you you stupid bitch. I died and you brought me back. No one's ever done that before. No one's even wanted me alive before. Not even my children, not my great Mother, not anyone save Death, and only because I do such a good job of sending others down to him. No one ever wanted me alive before, and you bought me back here.... I know that you love me, Your eyes tell me nothing, those godsdamned silver mad eyes.... they're entrancing. I can't look away from them- I can't escape them, they follow me everywhere though they've been gone. It's so cold. The only thing that warms me is the little pulse of the stone, it's all that's left. All that keeps me warm. it's so cold here, Ta....

I'm still talking to you, you know. You still shouldn't have left. I never got to finish yelling at you when you were alive, asshole. Asshole.

Asshole.

Gods, I hate you. I hate you for making me love you, but I'm stuck with it now. It's not going away, it burns like Hell never could for there are no fires in hell. Only darkness, and silence. Like this ruin. These stones of the ziggurat on the mountain, of the ice of these hills and the darkness of this sky. The sun never shines here, it's perpetual midnight, like your eyes were. I can still feel your eyes love. I can still smell you in your clothes.

I really do hate you, you know that... I hate you so much....

Sometimes I still wonder why I ever kissed you in the first place. Sometimes I wonder if I knew this would happen... but how could I have. I couldn't see the darkness in you so well as I can now, that nasty little core that never says anything- just stares back at me through those eyes. You were fucking crazy, Ta. Crazy. I knew you were crazy, but I came anyway. Maybe I was stupid. Maybe not. Damnit hon.

I just wish you'd come back so I could finish yelling at you. And then I'd kiss you, you asshole. You were an asshole- I meant it when I said it. You went off to die for no reason, you left me here and you went off to die. I felt it, bitch. I felt everything, I felt it all in this dark hole, in these ruins. Asshole. You did this to me willingly, you planned it, calculating, cold, eyes.

I'm still waiting for you to admit it, you know. Somehow. A sign, a dream. I don't dream anymore. I haven't for the last two years. Not once, not even a glimpse of one, my dreams disappeared that night that you walked away to face your death. I don't believe in destiny. I don't even believe in myself anymore. Just in you. And you're dead. Asshole.

Sometimes In just want to smash the fucking thing out of spite... but no. I can't, I won't. I still need to talk to you, and it's all that keeps me warm in these mountains. Because I still love you, hon. And it's always going to be this way.

2:34 PM 9/12/2004


	17. Winter

Something I wrote on the spur of the moment, when the soft piano cords of Tori Amos' "Winter" came on. The voice here is my silent formal little child, Mari. Even I don't know her very well.

* * *

I remember him vaguely. It was not long that I knew him, my father. I have heard many stories about him... and they seem to be true. I never thought much of them, for I already knew these things.

Father was a very serious man, always. He smiled not at all without reason, he was reasonable and distinct. He would not wish me to miss, so I do not, it is as simple as that. He taught me well in five years, of myself and my magic, of knowledge. His lessons have served me well, in these years during and hence. His death was unfortunate, but unavoidable. He saw it and followed, he did not fight the indivertible. My time hence has been spent as he would have wished it- following his teaching and reading his books. There are many of them, but I have had much time.

Miss? I do not miss. I remember, my father standing in the snow with the clouds to his back, his eyes searching the sky for things I cannot guess. I remember him as he would take my hand as a child and lead me to my lessons. I remember his words with mother, how they would look at each other. I remember him when she would grow angry with him when she would press him for love and he would not return it. Such a strange concept mother has... I cannot say it makes sense to me. Shall she always be like this? Yes. She has for the four years hence father's death.

Mother changed. She spends little time anywhere, as her mind never seems to travel. It does not bother me, as she has already taught me anything that I have need of. She pays me little heed anymore, mind set so much on her stone. She never lets me see it enough to examine what it may be. So I read.

There were the times when I thought I saw father coming down the stairs to speak to me, only to see her in his clothes. Strange.

This is the manner of life for the last four years. He has been gone almost as long as I ever knew him now. It's strange, I must say. Not to see his eyes in the back of my vision. Not to listen to him read, the sound of his hands as his fingers brushed over leather covers, not to have him lead me to the tower to observe the skies. Sometimes I am curious of what would have been if he had not left, but such thoughts are nonsense and thus quickly dismissed. Life is well enough. I have improved greatly even in his absence. He would have approved.

But I cannot say that I miss, for missing is a very silly thing. And I am not a silly woman. Father would have never have approved of such silliness as missing. And he is here somewhere, present in these walls, so I shall not disappoint him. Not when I can feel his presence behind me. He is never there when I turn, so I do not. But still I have the sensation of his hand on my shoulder, resting there lightly as it did when I was very small. But it is never more that a passing sensation.

I would have preferred if he had stayed with us. I would like to speak to him of his thoughts. Wherever he may be now.

Rest well, for I shall not see you again. But I have time before I finish these pages, so you may come by if you wish.

2:29 AM 10/30/2004


	18. Overwhelming part deux

This pretty much came out of left field. I was checking my email and came across a review that reminded me about these little one-shots, and in skimming through I came across one of the bits I had written and pretty much forgotten about. This is Overwhelming part Deux: further down the road

* * *

Teeth like knives, I still have the memory vague in my leg of that. Bitter little world. I actually laugh about it sometimes, even if I rarely laugh at all. I still do remember people who did, but it's vague like the summer at night. You can feel it but...

That was a bad analogy. Summer nights are some of the most powerful forces you can stand in the midst of, the humidity sinks into your bones and envelops you in a brilliantly warm dark embrace. It's beautiful. I don't use that word often, but it truly is. I've always been fond of summer, even back as a child when I was fond of nothing. I did have hope back then, now that I look back all this time later. I had hope that I would have someone to come and take me away from the woman. No one ever did, so it never happened and that hope disappeared and I forgot about it. I suppose that's when I got restful again, and it lasted for far too long. I'm not resentful of anyone anymore, because as this life stands I need whatever hope I can have before me. I need to hold it so it doesn't float ethereal away into the cool autumn night. It's autumn again, I can see your colors everywhere and remember you laughing asking me to follow. I always caught you, even if it matched your coat beautifully. Those blue eyes glowing from all the amber and gold and hazel was one of the most beautiful visions of my entire life, my good friend. I should have poured more closely over those terms. If I had, you'd still be there padding the trail before me, looking back with a smile and doing as you always did. I'd still have both of you there if I had paid attention to the terms.

No resentment. I promised myself that, and I promised you that. It stands for three of you now, sets of blue eyes that haunt me to this day. Gods. I remember all of you. Even if I never knew you long enough.

How long is enough with love? How long is enough, eternity is not enough with love when you finally have the chance to reach out of the mist and take hold of something real. I remember the softness of your skin, my love. Gods. I don't know what you did to me, but this isn't something I'm going to recover from. I don't particularly want to either.

He hasn't called in some time. I wonder when he will, again. Curious. I don't particularly care if he ever calls me again, because he will never give me the one thing I desire. I was tricked out of eternity and I was tricked out of an end and I was tricked out of my very soul and all that gave it meaning. All I have now is my footsteps and the sunrises I never miss. It's not as if we ever watched sunrises. They let me know how long it has been since I lost my hold on you, since he won. I remember your eyes when I saw them for the last time. I haven't seen you in the years since, even though I do wander through the bowels of hell when he isn't looking, searching for you and the child. I know he has you, I know where you are, I know where you use to be and you are there no longer. It would drive me mad if I would allow it, but it would make things too easy for him. I know the fact that I have yet to break irritates him, and that is all I can do to him so I do it every chance that I get. I can stay sane for you. You always liked it when I had that normalcy. I want to be normal for you, blue eyes. Sometimes it's too much. But I hold what I have left of you close to my heart, the scrap of golden chain that I caught when he ripped you from me, the few links that caught in my hand when it broke as you and your eyes disappeared for the last time. Gods love. I don't know what he's done to you. I feel the pain in the back of my head, throbbing with fury in the nights where I can not sleep no matter if I had even wanted to. You've kept me up for years. I pray it isn't because of pain, but then I remember there is no one to pray to who would aid me so I pray to myself and to you and even to your goddess though I know none of the incantations or rituals to invoke her. She spoke to me once through you, I still remember it as if it stood right here before me. Across the mountains, the sands, the trials, shall ye find what ye desired most. I found it, and then it was stolen from me because I can't bloody read and I took his word for it though I knew who he was. Where is your goddess? How long did you carry her last image, how long did you protect that damned statue in the desert and the frigid cold and the beasts we passed, only for her to abandon you? I pray feverishly to her every day in lieu of sleep, she must one day hear me and speak to me to tell me why she had abandoned her last priestess to the bowels of the Underworld, her last child to gods know what dark hole and fate, and the only other who even remembers her to rage and words that never bear fruit? Nishea, I hate you more than him some times. I know he never means me well. You saved my life one night and now you do not answer my calls to your better nature, to dignity and respect of the last of your people. I really do hate you some days.

But that does not chance the light on the horizon. I can see the sun again, the first halos of morning that tell me that life still exists out there. That there is something that continues beyond me that is worth following the same steps over and over for. Like the night, it's beautiful in its cruelty. Those things that could hide, trysts of the moon's light hidden in the night are laid bare by the light of day. It reminds me of the first time I woke up next to you, my beautiful blue-eyes sand-child. It reminds me of the bitter light of the desert every day that we trudged through that mess, bickering like a married couple bent on homicide. I loved it while it lasted.

Someday I will get an answer. And I will ask, as simple and overstated as it is, why. And I pray that I shall find the other links of this chain safe in the hands of my other half. When the chain is mended life will be whole again. Until then, I have nothing to do but wait.

I've got all the time in the world.

1:59 PM 10/30/2005


	19. Portland Rain

Fanfiction fills me with such a massive joy that I can't explain. Just wandering around, looking at this living world wells me up to a point that I have to do something. The musical inspiration here is "Portland Rain", by Everclear.

* * *

This is... a strange world. I can't say anything else that makes it more definite. It never did make any sense, but I just... keep going on.

I guess it's just in my nature. I don't break down. I was made too well.

Funny I should be saying that.

I've broken, in ways. But not enough to bring me down. There's too much in my blood that keeps me barreling forward no matter how many people die around me.

No more. I'm not having any more people die around me.

This time, we're all dying.

That's not much more comforting when you say it aloud. Most people would find it morose. I'm just not most people. Knowing that someone is willing to go down beside me for this mission, my own mission- the thought that I actually am -_choosing_- this fate, as opposed to someone else setting it upon me... I can't explain it. It blows my damned mind. I'm choosing my own death. This is for something important. And someone cares enough about me to follow me to the ends of the earth, to the ends of hell. Can you understand just how -_huge_- this is? This is the apex of everything.

I have people who care about me again. Person. Whatever. One is enough.

I just wish I didn't have to have this happen. I don't want her to die. But the knowledge that she doesn't care... heh.

I'm confused myself. But it feels good.

We've been traveling long enough and she isn't sick of me yet. She's never given up on me, through all of this.

I don't know what I'd have done without... a friend around. I've never had friends before. Just Videru, and that was different. She was more like a mother, like a mother is suppose to be. Heh. I actually feel good about myself, knowing what's going to happen now. Even with someone following along after us... he actually cares. He actually cares about her, and he's willing to die with my idiocy and her bravery and her loyalty, because he cares about her. There's honesty around me. I've never had this much honesty surrounding me in my life- it's a heady thing you can feel in the godsdamned -_air_-, enough to get you drunk if you linger on it. It keeps me up at night sometimes in awe, watching them sleep. Something about the fire. It's not the old anger or the prayers or the stubbornness that keeps me up all the time. I'm dying of my own choice. For my own choice. For our choice. This feels good. I've said that already. It just... needs to be said. Because it's just that godsdamned amazing. You could say anything and it would not stun me as much as this pride that wells up inside of me and covers that pit where my anger always lives. I don't feel it all the time. At times I'm free. I've smiled more in the last month than I have in the twenty-five, thirty, thirty five years since Li died.

I might never see her again. But I know she would be proud of me. I'm proud of these students by me here this night. I may never say it in so many words, but I am.

We're dying with dignity. Some people say there is no such thing, that all death is ugly no matter what your reasons are. But this is important to me. I've seen so many people die. Hundreds. Thousands. I want my choice, in this life with so few choices.

The air is sweet on the island wind, blowing through the trees on the edge of beach where camp is. We're leaving tomorrow, to find the portal. And then we die. But I don't mind dying anymore. I'm just so fucking proud of these people.

It feels good to feel good again.

Love, I'm coming. I may never see you but I am coming. I'm keeping my promise. We all are. We're better than the shit facing us. And as hopeless as this is...

I have hope again. Not that we'll survive. But that we can make it, even if we die.

6:03 PM 2/6/2007


	20. Rattlesnakes

Something that needed to go up a while ago, but I only just got to. Inspiration is Tori Amos' cover of Lloyd Cole's "Rattlesnakes", in sound if not in the actual lyrics. This one actually hurts.

* * *

You can feel it, the change in the air, it brushes through you like thunder. Kisses your cheek softly, then the hand trails off and you can't find her eyes anymore in the clouds. It's a strange sort if thing, really. S'how things are. I can still see your smile... back there, back in the back of my eyes. Sort of beautiful. Even if it's the thunder, the stuff you know's dangerous. You can feel it.

It rolls on down from the sky, the colors all get... clearer. Saturated, so much heavier- like an impressionist painting of itself. It's so heavy it almost isn't real, and then there's the breath the world takes where everything stills... and then the rain. It comes down on you, fills your throat and your eyes and touches on your naked skin so cool, it's like your kisses on my eyelids before we sleep. I stretch my arms out in it now and close both my eyes, just to feel it. It's just me and the rain now. The sound, so soft, it's all that you can hear, the birds have a moment of silence. They're too amazed at this everyday beauty, it's a matter of respect fer them. They're taking their moment of silence. I think I said that already. Ah, but it all washes away in the rain... cool and clear and the new silent world wrapping around me.. feel it under my feet. On my hands, down my chest and down my back, it's beautiful. This is life itself. Water. I don't know why I get all worked up about water like this, it's just how I am. S'how I've always been, when I'm myself. When it's just me and the rain and this hand holding mine, this woman beside me. She smiles at me, hair plastered down from the mess of it after all this time we've been spending standing out here like fools when everyone else's inside.

⌠Yer dress is ruined, ya know that." I tell her.

And she just smiles at me, and tosses down the drenched bouquet in her other hand, pushing the sopping veil off her head and letting it fall in the mud.

"I never liked the idea of the veil anyway."

"You're so beautiful, Ver."

"I knew that already silly. But thank you for the note. It's always good to hear". She kisses me and the world falls away behind us.

I wrap my arms tight around her, feeling the soggy taffeta and silk under my hands, loosing that touch in the mass of her hair as I trail my hands through it. She brushes the back of my head and just smiles at me, hovering just a breath away, just breathing.

All I can feel is her, and the rain. All I can hear is the water coming down around us filling out footprints and her soft breaths against my nose. She smiles at me. I smile back. And I know that this is all I really need, in the world.

This is enough for me. S'all I need. She says it's all she needs too. And that's enough for us.

11:26 PM 5/16/2007


	21. Sandstorm

This isn't exactly a SOC, but while running through old short writing I came across it and decided to put it up caus I haven't posted in a while and I like it. This is a vignette from an RP between me and Devon at a pivotal point where, depending on the choices he makes, Scythe could get himself and everyone else he cares about killed- but the reward if it works out is the freedom he's been deprived his whole life. It's slightly confusing, but I don't think it's much more or less so than my actual SOCs. This would have been written while listening to a track I have on my computer just of the wind blowing sharply in a deserty place.

* * *

He'd been expecting this, more or less around now.

Death has a pattern to how he works. Given his mood and workload when Scythe last saw him he was part due at this point. There's a good deal of familiarity in the rhythm, in how the god talks and acts. It strikes him... how odd it would be if that were suddenly gone. Hells, he's been under him for the last three hundred fifty years, give or take a few decades. Creature of habit that he is, it's not exactly comforting. But how insanely unlikely that he'd ever live to see those changes makes it... well, it doesn't make it easier.

Trail of thought's cut short by the buffet of the wind from the south- he crouches down further behind the dune and shifts his back to keep the sand out of his eyes. The mask protects his breathing, but the damn wind's buffeting his hood about.

He allows himself a moment for a scowl shot back through said hood to the direction of the gusts. Doesn't need to actually look, there's nothing to see here.

Just... the land's sea laid out starkly in all directions, very little color to any of it in the low light that accompanies heavy cloud cover. No prayer of rain, not this time of year. Just enough to ease the worst of the direct heat.

He'll manage. Keeps his attention forward on the target. Some Bedouin or their ilk in this world who've offended the old god somehow. They're probably aware of it. The man outside the shelter stands tall, a grim look locked in a face worn ragged by years and years of sun and wind like this. Most don't see death coming. These men do.

Not that they know Scythe is there. He's very careful to assure that they don't.

Could they stop him? No. But the job calls for surprise. It's not his role to question why his master calls for one method or another.

The small camp- six men and camels- sits half a mile away from him. If the men in the tent are talking he can't hear it. The guard's silent. Keeps his hands close to his saber. Smart.

He has time to think after crouching back down into the trough of the dune. There isn't a timetable on this one, just before they leave back to the larger camp. He's needed the time to think anyway, and it's always been easier with his own blade in his hands

A hint of green is visible for a moment from between the black surrounding most of his face when he glances back behind him. Nothing's changed- just ashen gold and grey stretching out, miles and miles. He pulls a little further into the cloak down by the desert floor and the dune shielding him from the targets. Keeps just enough focus on the men to know if anything interesting is happening. Lets his thoughts wander with the familiar feeling of the shinigamiblade laid across his knees.

He knows the layout of the underworld. He knows where the pit is. Knows how to enter the living quarters- Love had told him, laughing, a century ago about how the god never bothered to lock his door because no one would dare go to the depths of his domain and they wouldn't be able to find the door anyway. She used it to her advantage to do little things to drive him furious- hide his favorite shirts, important documents, little trinkets he had for reasons only he probably remembered. Still did it on occasion. Scythe had known where the door was for the last two hundred years and how to open it. Never thought too deeply about it before now.

Love had also showed him her office once, during a less than pleasant incident where she had kept him in her domain for an extended period of time. It was suppose to be helpful, but it wasn't to make it short. But he had seen the sigils, the icons and the trinkets by which the gods could quickly communicate with one another, he knew that Death would have the same things and he knew what the blue skinned Lord's communicational object looked like, and the kind of place it would need to be kept.

He would be the most likely one to think quickly and give them any chance at all. The immaterial Lords were known to care very little for mortal affairs.

So all of that was set. The plan.

Leaving just the question of... when.

Movement- one of the men in the tent comes out, speaking in an old language Scythe doesn't know to the guard. He goes back in. Scythe turns away again.

When. When is it time? The others seem as ready as they can be. He just hasn't felt any real certainty himself. Doesn't know what the hell he's expecting- a sudden light, a dream? He doesn't godsdamned dream. It's more complicated.

Someone comes out to milk a camel. It complains, but they stay in the borders of camp. They hurry back inside with the bowl.

The chain was the last physical thing holding him down and it has gone to a new caretaker.

Satou.

Gods.

He had run into her, while Death stormed off to shout at the emissaries of some overworld god who didn't know anything about underworld politics and had brought him a ridiculous offering to try to coax him to lend assistance in some manner. He knew it was her before he saw her because of the chi. Apparently she still couldn't sense his- she started when she had walked halfway past him already.

They didn't speak. She didn't even glare at him with the requisite venom, just had this flabbergasted look on her face with touches of unease and confusion in the corners of the sapphires. It was the strangest thing.

In that moment he knew that she knew- she knew what they were planning.

But he was standing where he was, which meant that Death didn't know. The direction she went off in wasn't toward their shared master.

So she knew, and she hadn't told him.

It... wasn't what he would have wanted for them. But it was the most he had seen out of her since that last morning when the five year old stared at him with strange resolve in her little face watching them go from the mouth of the cave, assured that her mother would come back later, even if he wouldn't. It was the best he was likely to get.

That made it close. Very close. It would just be simpler if there was a sign, of some kind.

Afternoon changes to evening. The men go in and out at times, speaking in hushed tones. Serious. Always serious. The guard's eyes change direction for the first time, turning right toward him for a moment- but locked far past him. A grimace pulls, first other expression he's had all day. Scythe knows he hasn't been seen.

He shakes his head and turns back to the tent.

He doesn't take another step after that.

Once Scythe is inside it ends within a minute- the fifth man falls reaching for his saber. The sixth remains on the mat where he had been laid by him comrades when they brought him there in the first place.

Scythe can't reach his height inside the small space, but it isn't needed. The man isn't going anywhere, nor does he try. He looks him square in the eyes, spits over his left shoulder and mutters a word that Scythe recognizes. Devil. It's in contempt.

He barely needs to kill him. In his state he would die out here on his own without care. Scythe does it anyway, wiping his blade off on the skin wall of the tent as he exits.

He doesn't look at the sky, or back to the bodies, turning instead to cut the camels loose. They balk and groan anxiously, nostrils flaring, running as soon as their tethers are loosed in complete disregard for their previous caretakers.

If it had been him they were so concerned about they would have been stirred sooner. Something else has them spooked.

Scythe looks back finally so see what all the commotion was about.

He'd forgotten just how quick desert storms can be.

The wall of it is nearly solid, almost bowls him over as he stands but by grace of training he keeps on his feet- thrusting the staff of his weapon into the ground and locking his grip, blade twisted to protect his eyes until he can get some sort of chi shield over his face to allow him to look up again.

There's nothing that will come out of his thoughts for several minutes- eyes wide, staring up at the behemoth and feeling the winds rattle through his bones like the base when you're too close to large speakers, just more jarring and deadly. The screaming gales bluster past him, tossing the landscape and sculpting it madly, pulling tons of sand into the air and reworking all of it.

He actually doesn't make the comparison with how, many years ago, he found himself in a sandstorm, because he can't think that far. The world exists in moments, it changes, it changes again, and at some point in time which is completely beyond him it passes and goes on without him. He stares back at it, eyes still widened.

Some time the next afternoon Death arrives to pick him up. Various bureaucratic affairs keep Death too occupied to deposit him back into the living world until the next morning. He walks back from there.


	22. Father's Son

* * *

Another dark little SOC that smacked me upside the head and -demanded- that I write it immediately. The song is the utterly amazing "Father's Son" by Three Doors Down. I actually borrowed the narrator, but probably only his authoress would even know any of what's going on here anyway. If it gets a little too confusing, remember that nameccian men can be mothers as well. Enjoy.

* * *

If mom hadn't died, you think to yourself before the world goes black, none of this would have happened.

He should have been there for him. Protected him. How? Gods, who knows. When you were a kid it seemed like dad could do anything. Never thought he could be helpless. But that was before mom died.

Dad fell apart. He fell fast and hard and he took a lot of people with him before it was finally over. You kinda wish you'd been one of them. You'd have mom at least. Everyone else seems to do pretty fucking good without you. They'd have gotten over it- your brother would have run off to Texas with his girlfriend about the same fucking way, your ex would have run off with your best friends exactly the same fucking way, and... you're a miserable father to Karrie anyway. She would have been born as somebody else's kid. It'd be better for everyone.

The stale smell in the apartment's probably you. You can't pick it up too well, with the whiskey haze swallowing it down to woozy pinpricks. It hurts to look at it with clarity. The room, the windows, your life.

Any time that it occurs to you to get the hell out of here you try. Gods it aches to think. Don't think. It's easier to rot here.

Karrie's sleeping. You made sure before slinking into your hole. You hate when she sees you like this, even if it is what's best for everyone. You see, dad didn't drink. Dad didn't forget. He just got angrier and angrier, focusing in on everything that'd gone wrong more and more until he exploded. You can feel that monster in your own skin and the whiskey drains it out. It does its job. You've never hit Karrie like you were in those last few years when you and dad would beat on each other at times that had nothing to do with sparring. Never even fucking hit Kit, though she could never understand anything. Such a fucking stupid kid, you should never have even started to-

Gods man. You can't go there. You were both stupid fucking kids who thought having your own kid would make you a family instead of strangers living in the same house. Stay in that place in your head too long and you'll eat yourself alive. Keep any violence out of the family. Keep it to people no one cares about, like that girl working in the street who looked like her. Mom would have understood. You've got to believe he would, to keep yourself in one piece. Mom would have understood what you're doing to yourself.

Whole life, you try to be something. It's your story isn't it. You're your father. You say you're not, that you're streetwise and social and smarter but the same monster lives inside you and you're just containing it a little better than he did. Its going to go off and it's going to kill you, but not like the craters dad left behind. You're going to leave a corpse in a gutter somewhere alone or on a bed in a cancer ward. Nobody's going to remember you but Karrie and the poor saps that have to clean up after you.

There's more, to it all. But that's where the blackout fades in.

If mom had been here, he would have understood what happened to us.

4/16/2008 04:07 PM


End file.
